272 HAYS OUT OF DOORS. 



would only add a word more about Pickering's hyla, as it 

 is usually called. I endeavored, during last winter, to de- 

 termine just how far it was affected by extreme cold, and 

 was quite unsuccessful. One incident, however, bears 

 upon the matter. During a sleety, snowy, northeast 

 storm in December I heard one peeping in a tall birch tree, 

 and searched long for it. It appeared to be among the 

 lower branches, but of this I could not be sure. It is pre- 

 eminently a wood-note that is difficult to locate. 



At last, chilled from long clinging to the icy branches, 

 I sprang to the ground, and in so doing brushed the hyla 

 with me to the heaped leaves in the wood-road. This 1 

 discovered, for twice as it crouched among them I heard 

 its shrill peep, and then caught sight of it as with one 

 desperate leap it vanished. 



If here, where 



" sultry summer overstays 

 When autumn chills the plain," 



but did not that winter's day, the hylas can find heart to 

 peep, I am ready to hear them at any time, let the mer- 

 cury range where it will. 



Just before a sudden blast from the north with its 

 attendant iciness closed the month, there was a soft south 

 wind that warmed not only the air but the water, and 

 brought all of our batrachian life to the fore. Great bull- 

 frogs, spotted croakers, green rattlers, pygmy peepers — 

 silent now — and daintiest of all, Pickering's tree-toad, 

 which peeped continually. Then, among the wind-swept 

 leaves that clogged the brook were salamanders of all sizes — 

 brown, spotted, red, yellow, and striped. But the little 

 tree-toad, now calling through the woods and always the 

 most difficult to discover, I despaired of finding, but for- 

 tune favored me, and I saw a single one as it gave a mighty 

 leap and came to rest upon an oak leaf across the ditch. 



