46 



BIRDS AND FLOWERS. 



female, but the beautiful, round-spotted, lilac-brown 

 breast is the same in both sexes, making this bird the 

 handsomest of the handsome tribe of woodpeckers. 



As we sit here on the river bank I like to think of 

 the old days before the bridges, when the name Ferry 

 Lane was literally true, and a boat plied between op- 

 posite shores. The ferry was maintained till 1831 by 

 Benjamin Kimball of Sugar Ball ; but the building of 

 the Free Bridge (1839) rendered it useless. There 

 were two other ferries in town, where the East Con- 

 cord and the Lower Bridge now stand, and during the 

 eighteenth century there was no other means of cross- 

 ing the river. Primitive traffic it must have been in 

 those days, much of it on foot or horseback. The 

 charge was sixpence apiece for each man or horse, 

 and fourpence for each " horned beast." The carts 

 were home-made, and there was scarcely a chaise or 

 curricle in town till after the Revolution. 



If you do not mind the walk, we will go home by 

 way of the Fan. We keep northward past the Fort 

 Eddy Pond and ice-house and presently come to the 

 edge of a great interval made by an enormous bow in 

 the river. Here we see the oldest cultivated land in 

 town. For a hundred and eighty years these mead- 

 ows have been mown. On the upland lies the Brad- 



