272 WASTE-LAND WANDERINGS. 



the persimmon, can be dried, and kept indefinitely ; and 

 notwithstanding no mention is made of the practice, I 

 am inclined to believe that dried plums and other fruits 

 were used, as well as the fruit eaten in a fresh state. 

 Certainly if it is true that plum orchards were designedly 

 planted by the Indians, this latter inference must be true. 

 While yet discussing the botanical features of this 

 neighborhood, what, it may be asked, is the fish-tree? 

 Somewhere not far away, according to Campanius, there 

 grew, in his time, " the fish-tree, which resembles box- 

 wood, and smells like raw fish. It cannot be split, but 

 if a fire be lighted around it with some other kind of 

 wood, it melts away." I have tested on my andirons all 

 our native trees, and there is not one that can be said 

 to melt away. The persimmon when newly split has a 

 more fish-like smell than any other, but then it can be 

 split. It is indifferent firewood, I am sure ; so perhaps 

 this is the tree referred to. 



But the present bridge : what of it ? Like many an- 

 other rude structure far away from the bustle of a town, 

 it is the home of a host of creatures, furred and feath- 

 ered, for mice hide in its -roof and musk-rats in the 

 abutment walls; while under the eaves cliff swallows 

 have dwelt for years, and upon the rough framework 

 that sustains the fioor peewees have nested since the 

 bridge was built. I have counted seven such nests, all 

 occupied at the same time, and never a quarrelsome word 

 between these near neighbors. In one of the abutments 

 for years a pair of Carolina wrens have nested, and, 

 strange to say, without quarrelling with the swallows, 



