The red-banded salamander may sometimes be found in the woods lying coiled on the tip of a branch or a large fern frond, the red line on his back showing like a coil of scarlet ribbon. If he is alarmed this coil snaps out straight, and by that motion he has cast himself several feet distant, and is gone among the grass. Commend us to a red-banded salamander or a wood-toad for a sudden and effective jump. Nothing is more curious than to see this dainty little red-banded beast climbing up a rush, or a long, stiff spear of grass, or the graceful, plumed stalk of a golden-rod. The very prettiest of all the salamanders is found in the red-wood forests of California; it is of a vivid salmon-color and has very prominent, bright eyes. Salamanders are found from Mexico to Siberia, and in general it may be stated that those of the warm latitudes are smaller, more active, and more gaily colored; those of colder climates are larger, duller, dark colored, and very slow in motion. In the British Islands there are no salamanders. The red-woods of California belong to a very ancient class of tree-vegetation: the salamanders are of an ancient class of living things. I have sometimes wondered looking at one of those little, brilliant, salmon-hued salamanders, with its staring bright eyes that see everything, whether it has received by tradition from its elders, tales of a time when intrusive mammals with man at their head were unknown, and they and the red-woods had their world to themselves. LESSON XXXIV. A DENIZEN OF THE MARSH LANDS. “But the cold-blooded snake in the edge of the brake Sits amid the rank grass, half asleep, half awake; And the ashen white snail, with the slime in its trail, Moves wearily on, like a life’s tedious tale.” --R. S. NICHOLS. If the question “What is a siren?” were suddenly put to a class of pupils, I think it probable that the boys would reply, “a steam whistle,” and the girls, “a fabulous monster with a beautiful voice, which she used to lure people to destruction.” Possibly some few observant lads from Georgia, Texas, and South Carolina, might say: “An animal something like a lizard; it lives in the marshes.” The girls would be right, and the boys right, but this last would be the answer wished for in natural history. A siren is an amphibious animal closely allied to the salamanders. There are four families of amphibians, or batrachians, which are so closely connected that in some of their stages of development they can scarcely be told one from the other.