Good evening, dear friends. Go home, bar your doors well! One never knows what may happen. The calmest nights are frequently the harbingers of storms. Sleep with one eye open. At any rate, sleep well. Pleasant dreams!
THE MONKEY, PAROQUET, AND COCK,
Editors in Chief.
JARDIN DES PLANTES, PARIS.
IN preparing the second part of our work for press, we were about to discharge the sacred duty of congratulating ourselves upon having laid the solid foundation of the animal constitution, when our pen was arrested by rumours of sedition and conspiracy. Dark clouds have been observed on the horizon; but our astronomers—creatures of true instinct—by their forewarnings, have hitherto enabled us to weather the worst storms, while at the same time, they have greatly increased our store of knowledge by clearing up some obscure points of siderology. They have further invented the seasons, and assured us that days and nights shall succeed each other as long as the observatory is properly endowed. They have decreed that the sun shall be free to all who pay the constitutional rates for the maintenance of paupers, of police, and of the state.
The wide experience and sagacity of these creatures have led them to investigate various natural phenomena, which they do not understand, nevertheless, with the innate modesty of votaries of science, they have compelled nature to bend to their conclusions and have accordingly arrived at certain incontestable facts.
The following communication has just been received from the observatory:
“We have discovered the true cause of alarm. Unless we are mistaken, the clouds that obscure the political horizon consist of swarms of flies and other winged insects—whose political opinions change with the wind—all of them armed to the teeth and tips of their tails.