tragic feature to the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be
remembered with Shakespeare's description of the sea floor."

[Illustration: A LAMPREY.]

A few of the fishes, as the mud minnow and smaller catfishes,
together with most frogs, turtles, and salamanders, on the approach of
winter, burrow into the mud at the bottom of the streams and ponds, or
beneath logs near their margins. There they live without moving about
and with all the vital processes in a partially dormant condition,
thus needing little if any food.

The box tortoise or "dry land terrapin," the common toad, and some
salamanders burrow into the dry earth, usually going deep enough to
escape frost; while snakes seek some crevice in the rocks or hole in
the ground where they coil themselves together, oftentimes in vast
numbers, and prepare for their winter's sleep. In an open winter this
hibernation is often interrupted, the animal emerging from its retreat
and seeking its usual summer haunts as though spring had come again.
Thus I have, on one occasion, seen a soft-shelled turtle moving
gracefully over the bottom of a stream on a day in late December, and
have in mid-January captured snakes and salamanders from beneath a
pile of drift-wood, where they had taken temporary refuge.

[Illustration: TURTLE.]

With frogs, especially, this hibernation is not a perfect one, and
there is a doubt if in a mild winter some species hibernate at all.
For example, the little cricket frog or "peeper" has been seen many
times in mid-winter alongside the banks of flowing streams, and during