Lately I have had chrysalids of the _Papilio asterias_, the common eastern swallowtail, in my study. I found the fat black and yellow worms on my parsley and caged them. They soon hitched themselves to the wire netting by their tails, hanging from overhead on a slant, their shoulders (so to speak) being supported by a single loop of silk. If you did but tap on the wire netting or scratch it these chrysalids would wiggle and jerk quite angrily, their action saying plainly, “Can’t you let me alone? I’m just having a nap!” No; it is plainly no death and resurrection which makes a butterfly. It is merely a caterpillar who was dressed for the fancy ball all the time. He came to the woodland hall in his greatcoat. This he sheds for a domino, in which he masquerades for a time. Then he bursts forth for the final festivities in a robe of princely beauty. My chrysalids did this only the other day. Wonderful creatures of black and yellow came forth, stretched their wings till I could see the dainty shading of blue and the peacock-feather eye of red and black on the lower part of the secondary wings; then, as I opened the window they dashed madly away as the vanessas do from willow twigs in the cove. The butterfly has been held up to us as an example of lazy dalliance. I have never watched one that was not as busy as a politician on election day. Especially do those just wakened from the chrysalis form rush away as if they knew all their work was before them and they longed to be at it. Of them all the monarch is not the most beautiful, but I rank him as surely the ablest. His annual migration shows him to have wonderful strength of wing, and either much wisdom or an extraordinarily developed instinct. Very likely he has both. Further, through accident pure and simple, or else a spirit of adventure fostered by the joys of long annual journey, he is steadily extending his habitat to embrace the known world. Originally of North America only, he has within the last dozen years taken ship for Australia, where he has multiplied greatly in the warmer regions, and has wandered again over sea to Java, Sumatra, and followed the flag into the Philippines. He is well established at the Cape de Verde Islands, and is doing his best to be happy in the pale sunshine of the south of England, whence specimens are reported yearly. THE RESTING TIME OF THE BIRDS THE RESTING TIME OF THE BIRDS This morning I heard the bluebirds again for the first time for weeks. They came up from the pasture to the apple trees and sang their modest little snatches of song in that shyly sweet, reserved yet fond, manner which makes the bluebird the best loved of all our pasture birds. There have been no bluebirds about my garden since the yegg raid of late May and its resulting tragedy. Now they are back, but there is in their call a note of sadness which indeed comes into the voice of every bluebird as autumn approaches, though I think it is accentuated in mine this year.