I will not attempt to describe this living gem of our "comma." There are degrees in its brilliancy, an occasional specimen being almost a mass of gold. Indeed, we need scarce wonder that the aurelia should have proved so tempting a lure to the ancient alchemists. Almost any group of nettles will show us our "comma" caterpillar, but one of its favorite haunts is the wood-nettle, a large-leaved, low variety, which is to be found in moist woods and shady river-banks, and will be recognized by the illustration on the preceding page. I have gathered many of these animated tented leaves in a few moments' search among the plants. I have said nothing of the wonderful transformation of the caterpillar to its chrysalis, and the astonishing trick by which the latter gets out of its skin, and again catches the silken loop with its tail. This feat is well worth a close study; the authorities in the past have all been at sixes and sevens as to what really takes place. Which of our boys or girls can discover the facts as they _are_, and tell us why the chrysalis does not fall out at the last moment? The Evening Primrose The summer which is allowed to pass without a visit to the twilight haunt of the evening primrose, perhaps at your very door, is an opportunity missed. Night after night for weeks it breathes its fragrant invitation as its luminous blooms flash out one by one from the clusters of buds in the gloom, as though in eager response to the touch of some wandering sprite, until the darkness is lit up with their luminous galaxy--that beautiful episode of blossom-consciousness and hope so picturesquely described by Keats: "A tuft of evening primroses O'er which the wind may hover till it dozes, O'er which it well might take a pleasant sleep, But that 'tis ever startled by the leap Of buds into ripe flowers." Nor is it necessary to brave the night air to witness this sudden transformation. A cluster of the flowers placed in a vase beneath an evening lamp will reveal the episode, though robbed of the poetic attribute of their natural sombre environment and the murmuring response of the twilight moth, a companion to which its form, its color, and its breath of perfume and impulsive greeting are but the expression of a beautiful divine affinity.