[Illustration:  PERPETUAL CALENDAR.]

It will be seen that the leap-years correspond to two letters.  We here employ the first to Feb. 29 inclusive, and the second for the balance of the year.  The calendar may be made of cardboard, and be fixed to wood.—­La Nature.

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AN ACCOMPLISHED PARROT.

Around the door of a Sixth Ave. bird store near Twenty-third St. was gathered the other day a crowd so large that it was a work of several minutes to gain entrance to the interior.  From within there proceeded a hoarse voice dashed with a suspicion of whisky, which bellowed in Irish-American brogue the enlivening strains of “Peek-a-boo.”  With each reiteration of “Peek-a-boo” the crowd hallooed with delight, and one small boy, in the exuberance of his joy, tied himself into a sort of knot and rolled on the pavement.  Suddenly the inebriated Irishman came to a dead stop, and another voice, pleasanter in quality, sang the inspiring national ode of “Yankee Doodle,” followed by the stentorian query and answer all in one, “How are the Psi-Upsilon boys?  Oh, they’re all right!”

A passer-by, puzzled at the scene, made his way into the store and soon solved the mystery.  In a large cage in the center was an enormous green and yellow parrot, which was hanging by one foot to a swinging perch, and trolling forth in different voices with the ease of an accomplished ventriloquist.  He resumed a normal position as he was approached, and flapping his wings bellowed out, “Hurrah for Elaine and Logan!” Then, cocking his head on one side, he dropped into a more conversational tone, and with a regular “Alice in Wonderland” air remarked:  “It’s never too late to mend a bird in the hand;” and again, after a pause, “It’s a long lane that never won fair lady.”  His visitor affably remarked: 

“You’re quite an accomplished bird, Polly,” and quick as a flash the creature replied: 

“I can spell, I can.  C-a-t, cat.  D-o-g, fox,” with an affectation of juvenility which was grewsome.  He resented an ill-advised attempt at familiarity by snapping at the finger which tried to scratch his poll, and barked out: 

“Take care!  I’m a bad bird, I am.  You betcher life!”

“He’s one of the cleverest parrots I have had for some time,” said his owner, Mr. Holden.  “In fact, he is almost as good as Ben Butler, whom I sold to Patti.  His stock of proverbs seems inexhaustible, and he makes them quite funny by the ingenious way in which he mixes them up.  I could not begin to tell you all the things he says, but his greatest accomplishment is his singing.  He is a double yellowhead—­the only species of parrot which does sing.  The African grays are better talkers, but they do not sing.  They only whistle.  What do I ask for him?  Oh, I think $200 is cheap for such a paragon, don’t you?”—­N.Y.  Tribune.