180 COUNTRY NEIGHBORS AGAIN. 



five feet above it. Now, Master Tom, if you want to 

 know more about nest-building fishes, you must get your 

 papa and mamma to inquire and see if they cannot get 

 you some of the little books on fishes and aquariums that 

 have been published lately. I remember to have read all 

 about these nests in one of them, but I do not remember 

 either the name of the book or the name of the fish, and 

 so there is something still for you to inquire after. 



I am happy to say, for the interest of the water-lilies 

 and the muskrats and the fishes, that the dam has only 

 been torn down from our river for the purpose of making 

 a new and stronger one, and that by and by the water 

 will be again broad and deep as before, and all the water- 

 people can then go on with their housekeeping just as 

 they used to do, only I am sorry to say that one fish 

 family will miss their house, and have to build a new one ; 

 but if they are enterprising fishes they will perhaps make 

 some improvements that will make the new house better 

 than the old. 



As to the birds, we have had a great many visits from 

 them. Our house has so many great glass windows, and 

 the conservatory windows in the centre of it being always 

 wide open, the birds seem to have taken it for a piece of 

 out-doors, and flown in. The difficulty has been, that, 

 after they had got in, there appeared to be no way of 

 making them understand the nature of glass, and wher- 



