Nebraska is distinctively the bird center of the United States. It contains more species than any other state in the Union, and ornithologists who have studied its feathered possessions have classified 417 distinct species that may be seen within its boundaries. Of these 225 species breed here and the remainder are migrants who drop in on us at certain seasons and then pass on to their breeding-grounds. The natural features of Nebraska are largely responsible for this remarkable variety of feathered population. It includes a diversity of country that offers attractions for hundreds of songsters. For instance, the mocking-bird and the cardinal grosbeak, who are distinctive Southern birds, frequently appear in the southern corner of the state, and in the west we have a large number of what are usually regarded as mountain birds, but which come down from the foothills at intervals to the kingdom of Quivera.--_Omaha Bee._ LURLALINE. _Old Irish Air._ There was a little water sprite, her name was Lurlaline; Amid the water lilies white sometimes she might be seen. She was a fairy child, Lurline, could sit secure and cool, Upon those lily leaves so green you see in some lone pool. There would she sit the summer day, singing a song so bright; You never heard the song, you say, and don't believe it quite? But that perhaps is just because when you quite near her stood, You did not notice where she was, or listen as you should. It happened in the month of June, the happy summer time. She always sang a lovelier tune and wove a lovelier rhyme, And you, too, like to Lurlaline, a lovelier song would sing, If only you knew what they mean, the flowers and ev'ry thing. If you were like a water sprite--the water sprites know well The wondrous things of day and night, and all they have to tell; They know and love the creatures wild, and all the flowers that grow; They live with them and love them well, God's hidden pets they know. And now if you want more to know what Amodine saw there, You first must love all things below, in water, earth, and air; You first must love all things that move among the trees and flowers, And then you shall have more to love in shining fairy bowers. A CONTRIBUTION TO CHILD-STUDY LITERATURE.