The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91,
May, 1865, by Various

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Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865

Author: Various

Release Date: January 5, 2010 [EBook #30862]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

_A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics._

VOL. XV.--MAY, 1865.--NO. XCI.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by TICKNOR AND
FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.

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 window, darting with a low,
complacent warble amid the dripping leaves, looking as dry and unruffled
as if a drop of rain had never touched him; the Cat-Bird has flirted and
attitudinized on my garden-fence; the House-Wren stopped a moment
between the showers, and indulged in a short, but spirited, rehearsal
under a large leaf in the grape-arbor; the King-Bird advised me of his
proximity, as he went by on his mincing flight; and the Chimney-Swallows
have been crying the child's riddle of "_Chippy, chippy, cherryo_,"
about the house-top.

With these angels and ministers of grace thus to attend me, even in the
seclusion of my closet, I am led more than ever to expressions of love
and admiration. I understand the enthusiasm of Wilson and Audubon, and
see how one might forsake house and home and go and live with them the
free life of the woods.

To the dissecting, classifying scientist a bird may be no more perfec