There are over three hundred and fifty different species of animals and birds treated by White, most of them exhaustively; the beech tree, the elm, and the oak are described and watched from year to year; and the geology and fossil remains of Selborne district are presented. We have daily accounts of the weather, information of the first tree in leaf, the appearance of the first fungi and the plants first in blossom. He tells us when mosses vegetate, when insects first appear and disappear, when birds are first seen and when they migrate--and a thousand other things; all in a style of such simplicity, united with rare scholarship, that it is well worth the attention and imitation of students of the English language. White was educated at Oxford. He had frequent opportunities, 'tis said, of accepting college livings, but his fondness for his native village made him decline all preferment. To this we owe "Selborne" of which Dr. Beardmore, a distinguished scholar, made the prophetic remark to a nephew of White's: "Your uncle has sent into the world a publication with nothing to attract attention to it but an advertisement or two in the newspapers; but depend upon it, the time will come when very few who buy books will be without it." The village was far less attractive than our imaginations would depict it to have been, and the traveler who would "view fair Selborne aright," according to a contemporary writer, should humor the caprices of the English climate and visit it only when its fields and foliage are clothed in their summer verdure. --CHARLES C. MARBLE. A FRIEND OF BIRDS It is told of George H. Corliss, the famous engine builder of Providence, R. I., that when building a foundry at the Corliss works, some Blue Birds took the opportunity to build in some holes in the interior framework into which horizontal timbers were to go. The birds flew in and out--as Blue Birds will--and went on with their housekeeping, until in the natural course of things the workmen would have evicted them to put the apertures to their intended use of receiving timbers. But Mr. Corliss interfered and showed how the particular aperture the birds were occupying could be left undisturbed until they were done with it, without any serious delay to the building. So the pair came and went in the midst of the noise of building and brought up their little family safely, and after they had flown away, and not until then, that particular part of the framework was completed. At another time, Mr. Corliss was working on a contract with the city of Providence to supply a steam pumping apparatus, power house and all, at Sockonosset, and the time was short, and there were forfeitures nominated in the bond for every day beyond a a specified date for its completion.