tidings will be received with respectful regret of the death of Nono,
a noted pensionary of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, at the ripe age
of more than a hundred years. To have achieved the celebrity of being
the oldest inmate of that institution was no despicable distinction,
but the venerable centenarian had other claims to honor. A native of
the Marquesas Islands, he was brought by Bougainville in 1776 to
the Royal Museum, afterward known as the Jardin des Plantes. It has
frequently been alleged that parrots may live a hundred years:
Nono has established the fact by living still longer. As he thus
contributes an illustration to science, so surely he might point a
general moral and adorn a historic tale. If Thackeray could discourse
so wisely on "Some Carp at Sans Souci," the vicissitudes which this
veteran Parisian witnessed in the French capital from 1776 to 1873,
under two empires, two royal dynasties and three republics, might be
worth a rhapsody. Nono seems to have been a well-preserved old parrot.
Magnificent in youth, he attained literally a green old age, for his
plumage was still fresh and thick. Very naturally, he had lost his
houppe, and was almost totally bald. However, his eye was clear and
bright enough to have read the finest print or followed the finest
needlework; and it had the _narquois_, lightly skeptical look of those
who have seen a great deal of life. In short, Nono was a stylish and
eminently respectable old bird. That worthy person, Monsieur Chavreul,
who treats the animals of the Jardin like a father, has stuffed
and mounted the illustrious Nono as a testimonial of affection and
respect.

* * * * *

The connection between war and botany is, at first, not specially
obvious, and yet a very clear bit of testimony to their relation was
disclosed by the siege of Paris. Two naturalists have published a
_Florula Obsidionalis_, which, as its name partly indicates, is a
catalogue of the accidental flora of the late investment of Paris.
They reckon in their list not less than one hundred and ninety species
before unknown to the neighborhood of the French capital, whereof
fifty-eight are leguminous (such as peas, beans, etc.), thirty-four
are composite, thirty-two are _plantes grasses_, and sixty-six belong
to other families. Almost all are to be found chiefly on the left bank
of the Seine, though also discoverable at Neuilly and in the Bois de
Boulogne. Of course, the