

FROM T WHARF TO FRANKLIN FIELD 41 



squid, squeteague, sharks, skates, smelts, sculpins, 

 sturgeon, scallops ; halibut, haddock, hake to say 

 nothing of mackerel, cod, and countless freak things 

 caught by trawl and seine all the way from Boston 

 Harbor to the Grand Banks ! I have many a time sat 

 on T Wharf and caught short, flat flounders with my 

 line. It is almost as good as a trip to the Georges 

 in the " We 're Here " to visit T Wharf; and then 

 to walk slowly up through Quincy Market. Surely 

 no single walk in the woods will yield a tithe of the 

 life to be found here, and found only here for us, 

 brought as the fish and game and fruits have been 

 from the ends of the earth and the depths of the sea. 

 There is no reason why city children should not 

 know a great deal about animal life, nor why the 

 teachers in city schools should feel that nature study 

 is impossible for them. For, leaving the wharf with 

 its fish and gulls and fleet of schooners, you come up 

 four or five blocks to old King's Chapel Burying- 

 Ground where the Boston sparrows roost. Boston is 

 full of interesting sights, but none more interesting 

 to the bird-lover than this sparrow-roost. The great 

 bird rocks in the Pacific, described in another chap- 

 ter of this book, are larger, to be sure, yet hardly 

 more clamorous when, in the dusk, the sparrow clans 

 begin to gather ; nor hardly wilder than this city 

 roost when the night lengthens, and the quiet creeps 

 down the alleys and along the empty streets, and 

 the sea winds stop on the corners, and the lamps, 





