Travels in a Tree-top 



29 



my attention from the tree at last, and thought. 

 What of the outlook ? Diredlly north, in 

 the shallow basin, hemmed in by low hills, 

 lies the town. A cloud of smoke and steam 

 rests over it, and barely above it reach the 

 church-spires and tall fa6lory chimneys, as if 

 the place was struggling to be free, but only 

 had its finger-tips out of the mire of the 

 town, of which I know but little. My won- 

 der is that so many people stay there, and, 

 stranger still, wild life not only crowds its 

 outskirts, but ventures into its very midst. 

 In one town, not far away, I found the 

 nests of seventeen species of birds, but then 

 there was a large old cemetery and a mill- 

 pond within its boundaries. Time was when 

 through the town before me there flowed a 

 creek, and a pretty wood flourished along its 

 south bank. The creek is now a sewer, and 

 an open one at that, and yet the musk-rat 

 cannot quite make up his mind to leave it. 

 Stranger than this was seeing recently, in a 

 small creek discolored by a dyeing establish- 

 ment, a little brown diver. How it could 

 bring itself to swim in such filth must re- 

 f main a mystery. A queer old chara6ler that 

 had lived all his life in the country once said 



3^ 



