84 



THE FALL OF THE YEAR 



_^x variegated with minute specks or spots," a species 

 fy I have never found here in my New England 

 woods. 



Nor have I ever suspected my red-backed salaman- 

 der of piping; though he may do it, as may the 

 angleworms, for aught I am able to hear, so filled 

 with whir of iron wheels are my dull ears. But listen ! 

 Something piping! Above the rustle of the leaves 

 we also hear a "fine plaintive" sound no, a shrill 

 and ringing little racket, rather, about the bigness 

 of a penny whistle. 



Dropping the rake, we cautiously follow up the 

 call it seems to speak out of every tree trunk and 

 find the piper clinging to a twig, no salamander at 

 all, but a tiny tree-frog, Pickering's hyla, his little 

 bagpipe blown almost to bursting as he tries to rally 

 the scattered summer by his tiny, mighty "skirl." 

 . Take him nose and toes, he is surely as much as an 

 s *inch long, not very large to pipe against the north 

 wind turned loose in the leafless woods. 



We go back to our raking. Above us, among the 



t stones of the slope, hang bunches of Christmas fern; 

 around the foot of the trees we uncover trailing clus- 

 ters of gray-green partridge vine, glowing with crim- 

 son berries; we rake up the prince's pine, pipsissewa, 

 , ? creeping Jennie, and wintergreen red with ripe ber- 

 ries, a whole bouquet of evergreens, exquisite, 

 fairy-like forms, that later shall gladden our Christ- 

 mas table. 





