nswers to the lively definition of an animal as "a stomach
provided with organs." It lives to feed. It does not know much, but in
its speciality it is unrivalled. The way in which it helps itself from
the sources of life is a masterpiece of hydraulic skill. Once let it
lose the Heaven-imparted art of haustion, and all the arts and academies
of the world can never teach it again.

To manage this little feeding organism, with its wondrous instinct and
capacity of imbibition, is the first great question after that of race
is settled. Shall the mother's blood continue to flow through its
fast-throbbing heart, and all the subtile affinities that bind the two
lives be continued until reason and affection take up the chain where
the link of bodily dependence is broken? Or shall it cleave no more to
her bosom, but transfer its endearing dependence to a stranger, or learn
to call a bottle its mother?

These are some of the questions learnedly, and yet familiarly, discussed
in M. Donne's book. He has laid down many excellent rules for the
physical and moral management of the infant, which the young mother can
readily learn and put in practice. For the physician, his work contains
many interesting facts with reference to the quality and the microscopic
appearances of milk, as obtained from various sources and under
different circumstances.

On one or two points our American experience would somewhat modify the
rules commonly accepted in Paris. The nurse from the French provinces is
evidently a different being from our Milesian milky mothers. So, too,
the rules given by our own venerable and sagacious observer, Dr. James
Jackson, as to the period of separating the infant from its mother or
nurse, should be borne in mind, as laid down in his admirable "Letters
to a Young Physician."

But there is a great deal of information applicable to children and
their mothers in all civilized regions; and as we wish to start fair
with the next generation, we are very glad to have so intelligent a
guide for the management of our infant citizens.

_Street Thoughts._ By the Rev. Henry M. Dexter, Pastor of Pine-Street
Church, Boston. With Illustrations by Billings. Boston: Crosby, Nichols,
& Co. 1859.

If a profusion of introductory mottoes were any indication of the
excellence of a book, this volume would be indeed a _chef-d'oeuvre_. On
the page usually devoted to the Dedication, we have no less than six
more or less appropriate quotation