themselves, and of its own free will, notwithstanding the length and
power of its wings, and the force of centrifugal attractions, is a
distinction which the good people of this favored town have good
reason to appreciate at its proper value. Nor are they insensible
to the honor. The town printer put into my hands a monthly
publication called "THE ROYSTON CROW," containing much interesting
and valuable information. It might properly have embraced a chapter
on entomology; but, perhaps, it would have been impolitic for the
personal interests of the bird to have given wide publicity to facts
in this department of knowledge. For, after all, there may exist in
the neighborhood certain special kinds of bugs and other insects
which lie at the foundation of his preference for the locality.

The next day I again faced northward, and walked as far as Caxton, a
small, rambling village, which looked as if it had not shaved and
washed its face, and put on a clean shirt for a shocking length of
time. It was dark when I reached it; having walked twelve miles
after three p.m. There was only one inn, properly speaking, in the
town, and since the old coaching time, it had contracted itself into
the fag-end of a large, dark, seedy-looking building, where it lived
by selling beer and other sharp and cheap drinks to the villagers;
nineteen-twentieths of whom appeared to be agricultural laborers.
The entertainment proffered on the sign-board over the door was
evidently limited to the tap-room. Indeed, this and the great, low-
jointed and brick-floored kitchen opening into to it, seemed to
constitute all the living or inhabited space in the building. I
saw, at a glance, that the chance for a bed was faint and small; and
I asked Landlord Rufus for one doubtingly, as one would ask for a
ready-made pulpit or piano at a common cabinet-maker's shop. He
answered me clearly enough before he spoke, and he spoke as if