Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) 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 perfect or lovable than a squirrel or a fish; yet to me it seems that all the excellences of the animal creation converge and centre in this nymph of the air; a warbler seems to be the finishing stroke.