196 SHARP EYES 



youth who accompanied me, and whom I had enlisted 

 to help solve the mystery. No, it was no frog or toad 

 at all, but the small red salamander commonly called 

 lizard. The color is not strictly red, but a dull orange, 

 variegated with minute specks or spots. This was the 

 mysterious piper, then heard from May till November 

 through all our woods, sometimes on trees, but usually 

 on or near the ground. It makes more music in the 

 woods in autumn than any bird. It is a pretty, inoffen- 

 sive creature, walks as awkwardly as a baby, and may 

 often be found beneath stones and old logs in the 

 woods, where, buried in the mould, it passes the winter." 



