But joe-pye weed tosses up his woolly pink head and flauntingly asks, “With that big yellow and black butterfly on my crown am I not more showy than they?” He has to be gently reminded that all his brothers are not wearing butterflies, which fact leads to a negative decision—still he is a beauty. Then the corners festooned with clematis, hop bindweed and even dodder give to the raw edges a finish that cannot be excelled. Little dots of cardinal, here and there, show a belated cardinal flower and bitter sweet just ready to open hangs over the elder bushes, which form one edge of this picture. The paler asters in eight or ten shadings, with the exception of the New England variety, begin to fill in the neutral patches, and golden rod is waving yellow plumes here and there. It is a beautiful color, but looks rather pale compared to the later sunflowers. Bone-set and yarrow and spurge each have a place, and great bunches of bedstraw fill up the crannies till not a square inch of earth is visible. Some of the plants which help complete the perfect whole but which are less numerous and showy, are the tall dead stalks of angelica, parsnips in seed, milkweed, ragweed, mallow, nettles, vervain, blackberry, and wild rose with scarlet bolls; and this flanked on another side by the densest of willow and thorn. Some of the finishing touches to this composite picture are the huge green dragon flies, the brilliantly colored butterflies and moths, and the catbirds and bird kindred which live in the heart of all this magnificence, but manage to keep well on the wing, especially when the sun shines bright and the air is soft and cool, and on days when a deep blue sky with great white clouds is the canopy. Mary Noland. The air is full of hints of grief, Strange voices touched with pain— The pathos of the falling leaf And rustling of the rain. —Thomas Bailey Aldrich, “Landscape.” [Illustration: STRIPED HYENA. (Hyaena striata.)] THE STRIPED HYENA. (_Hyaena striata._) The first Hyena in which I became interested lived in a zoölogical garden connected with a well known park.