In the woods one day (it was November) I turned over a stone that had a very strange-looking creature under it,--a species of salamander I had never before seen, the banded salamander. It was five or six inches long, and was black and white in alternate bands. It looked like a creature of the night,--darkness dappled with moonlight,--and so it proved. I wrapped it up in some leaves and took it home in my pocket. By day it would barely move, and could not be stimulated or frightened into any activity; but an night it was alert and wide awake. Of its habits I know little, but it is a pretty and harmless creature. Under another stone was still another species, the violet-colored salamander, larger, of a dark plum-color, with two rows of bright yellow spots down its back. It evinced more activity than its fellow of the moon- bespattered garb. I have also found the little musical red newt under stones, and several small dark species. But to return to the solitary bee. When you go a-hunting of the honey-bee, and are in quest of a specimen among the asters or goldenrod in some remote field to start a line with, you shall see how much this little native bee resembles her cousin of the social hive. There appear to be several varieties, but the one I have in mind is just the size of the honey-bee, and of the same general form and color, and its manner among the flowers is nearly the same. On close inspection, its color proves to be lighter, while the under side of its abdomen is of a rich bronze. The body is also flatter and less tapering, and the curve inclines upward, rather than downward. You perceive it would be the easiest thing in the world for the bee to sting an enemy perched upon its back. One variety, with a bright buff abdomen, is called "sweat-bee" by the laborers in the field, because it alights upon their hands and bare arms when they are sweaty,--doubtless in quest of salt. It builds its nest in little cavities in rails and posts. But the one with the bronze or copper bottom builds under a stone. I discovered its nest one day in this wise: I was lying on the ground in a field, watching a line of honey-bees to the woods, when my attention was arrested by one of these native bees flying about me in a curious, inquiring way. When it returned the third time, I said, "That bee wants something of me," which proved to be the case, for I was lying upon the entrance to its nest. On my getting up, it alighted and crawled quickly home. I turned over the stone, which was less than a foot across, when the nest was partially exposed. It consisted of four cells, built in succession in a little tunnel that had been excavated in the ground. The cells, which were about three quarters of an inch long and half as far through, were made of sections cut from the leaf of the maple,-- cut with the mandibles of the bee, which work precisely like shears.