WITH THE BIRDS. Not in the spirit of exact science, but rather with the freedom of love and old acquaintance, would I celebrate some of the minstrels of the field and forest,—these accredited and authenticated poets of Nature. All day, while the rain has pattered and murmured, have I heard the notes of the Robin and the Wood-Thrush; the Red-Eyed Flycatcher has pursued his game within a few feet of my... more...

THE DODDER. The genus Cuscuta contains quite a number of species which go under the common name of dodder, and which have the peculiarily of living as parasites upon other plants. Their habits are unfortunately too well known to cultivators, who justly dread their incursions among cultivated plants like flax, hops, etc. All parasitic plants, or at least the majority of them, have one character in... more...

THE ORATORY OF ANGLO-SAXON COUNTRIES By Edward A. Allen, Professor of Anglo-Saxon and English Literature in the University of Missouri English-speaking people have always been the freest people, the greatest lovers of liberty, the world has ever seen. Long before English history properly begins, the pen of Tacitus reveals to us our forefathers in their old home-land in North Germany beating back the... more...

When Sir Henry Bessemer, in 1856, made public his great invention, and announced to the world that he was able to produce malleable steel from cast iron without the expenditure of any fuel except that which already existed in the fluid metal imparted to it in the blast furnace, his statement was received with doubt and surprise. If he at that time had been able to add that it was also possible to roll... more...

CLIFTON. Clifton is the Montpellier of England, and is associated with all that is delightful in nature: of this, the Engraving before us is a true picture, whether we contemplate the winding Avon; the sublime beauty of its rocks— Clifton's airy rocks, (as Mr. Bowles poetically calls them), the picturesque scenery of the opposite shore; or the abodes of cottage comforts which cluster into a... more...

FINANCIAL. THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY presents its greetings for the month of May. Six months of our fiscal year are now in the past. The half year which we anticipate includes the summer time, when many of the friends of the ignorant millions to whom we are sent, are absent from their churches. The months of May and June ought to swell the stream of love and service against the season when the demand... more...

EVICTED. (A common scandal, inviting the attention of the Government.) I was amazed the other day to hear that my landlord had called to see me. Hitherto our intercourse had been by letter and we had had heated differences on the subject of repairs. His standpoint seemed to be that landlords were responsible for repairs only to lightning conductors and weathercocks. My house possesses neither of these... more...

One day a paragraph appears in the papers that a new piece will shortly be produced at such and such a theatre. Paterfamilias lays down the paper and placidly observes that it may be worth while getting seats. Then he goes down to the theatre, books seats, and troubles himself no more about the matter until the first night of the play in question. The world behind the curtain is one with which he is... more...

GEORGE WILKINS KENDALL. We have here a capital portrait of the editor in chief of the New Orleans Picayune, George W. Kendall, who, as an editor, author, traveller, or bon garçon, is world-famous, and every where entitled to be chairman in assemblies of these several necessary classes of people. Take him for all in all, he may be described as a new Chevalier Bayard, baptized in the spirit of fun, and... more...

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY OF IT. If you would teach your child to read in the easiest, quickest, and most practicable way, easiest both to the child and the teacher, put "The Nursery" in its hands every month. Our word for it, you will be surprised at the result. "The Nursery" will be found a primer, a reading-book, drawing-book, story-book, and lesson-book, all in one.—Boston Transcript.... more...