idly, rose up more upon his
feet, and bowed his head. As I continued the titillation he began to
give forth broken, subdued croaks, and I wondered if he were going to
break out in song. He did not, but he seemed loath to go his way. How
different he looked from the dark-colored frogs which in large numbers
make a multitudinous croaking and clucking in the little wild pools in
spring! He wakes up from his winter nap very early and is in the pools
celebrating his nuptials as soon as the ice is off them, and then in two
or three days he takes to the open woods and assumes the assimilative
coloring of the dry leaves.

The little orange-colored salamander, a most delicate and highly colored
little creature, is as harmless as a baby, and about as slow and
undecided in its movements. Its cold body seems to like the warmth of
your hand. Yet in color it is as rich an orange as the petal of the
cardinal flower is a rich scarlet. It seems more than an outside color;
it is a glow, and renders the creature almost transparent, an effect as
uniform as the radiance of a precious stone. Its little,
innocent-looking, three-toed foot, or three and a half toed--how
unreptilian it looks through my pocket glass! A baby's hand is not more
so. Its throbbing throat, its close-shut mouth, its jet-black eyes with
a glint of gold above them--only a close view of these satisfies one.

Here is another remarkable transformation among the small wild folk. In
the spring he is a dark, slimy, rather forbidding lizard in the pools;
now he is more beautiful than the jewel-weed in the woods. This is said
to be an immature form, which returns to the ponds and matures the next
season; but whether it is the male or the female that assumes this
bright hue, or both, I do not know. The coat seems to be its midsummer
holiday uniform which is laid aside when it goes back to the marshes to
hibernate in the fall.

Wild creatures so unafraid are sure to have means of protection that do
not at once appear. In the case of the newt it is evidently an acrid or
other disagreeable secretion, which would cause any animal to repent
that took it in its mouth. It is even less concerned at being caught
than is the skunk, or porcupine, or stink-bug.

In my retreat I was unwittingly intruding upon the domain of another
sylvan denizen, the chipmunk. One afternoon one suddenly came up from
the open field below me with his pockets full of provender of some sort;
just what sort I