He sometimes introduces a chapter without any heading in the following way—
"Sir," says the Compositor to the Corrector of the Press "there is no heading for the copy for this chapter. What must I do?"
"Leave a space for it," the Corrector replies. "It is a strange sort of book, but I dare say the author has a reason for everything he says or does, and most likely you will find out his meaning as you set up."
Chapter lxxxviii begins—"While I was writing that last chapter a flea appeared upon the page before me, as there once did to St. Dominic." He proceeds to say that his flea was a flea of flea-flesh, but that St. Dominic's was the devil.
Southey was particularly fond of acoustic humour. He represents Wilberforce as saying of the unknown author of the Doctor—Pooo-oo-oo-oo-r crēēēa-ture. Perhaps his familiarity with the works of Nash, Decker, and Rabelais suggested his word coming.
One of the interchapters begins with the word Aballiboozobanganorribo.
He questions in the "Poultry Yard" the assertion of Aristotle that it is an advantage for animals to be domesticated. The statement is regarded unsatisfactory by the fowl—replies to it being made by Chick-pick, Hen-pen, Cock-lock, Duck-luck, Turkey-lurkey, and Goosey-loosey.
He occasionally coins words such as Potamology for the study of rivers, and Chapter cxxxiv is headed—
"A transition, an anecdote, an apostrophe, and a pun, punnet, or pundigrion."
He proposes in another chapter to make a distinction between masculine and feminine in several words.