Chlorophyl, and cellular structure, and fibro-vascular bundles in the one plant wither and lose color and turn brown at a touch of frost. In another not ten feet away they stand the rigors of our northern winters and come out in the spring, seemingly unharmed and fit to carry on the internal economy of the plant’s life until it shall produce new leaves to take their places. Then in the mild air of early summer these winter darers fade and die. Here in the swamp the tough and woody cat-o’-nine-tails is brown and papery to the tip of its six-foot stalk. The blue flag that was a foot high is brown and withered alongside it, yet the tender young leaves of the _Ranunculus repens_ growing between the two and not having a tenth of their strength are tender and young and green and unharmed still. The first two died at a touch of the frost. The buttercup leaves have been frozen and thawed a score of times without hurt. You might guess that the swamp water has an elixir in it that saves the life of the repens; but how about the _Ranunculus bulbosus_, European cousin of the repens? That grows on the sandy hillside, and even the root tips that extend below its little white bulb have been frozen stiff a score of times since the woody stemmed goldenrod beside it dropped dead, sere and brown, at the first good freeze. Yet to-day in the smiling sun I found the young leaves of the _Ranunculus bulbosus_ green and succulent and unharmed of their cellular structure, and so I am sure they will remain, under the snow or bare, as the case may be when the first yellow bud pushes upward from that white bulb where it is now patiently waiting the word. Our botanists who study heroically to find some minute variation in form that they may add another Latin name to their text-books might study these variations in habit and result and tell me the reason for them. I’d be glad to buy some more books on botany; but none that I have seen have so far within their pages any explanation of this puzzle. WHEN THE SNOW CAME I haven’t seen my friend the cottontailed rabbit for some days. All the winter, so far, he has frequented his little summer camp on the southern slope of the hill, well up toward the top, among the red oaks. Here in a little tangle of tiny undergrowth and brown leaves, with a fallen trunk for overhead shelter, you might find him any forenoon. He had backed into this place and trampled and snuggled till he had a round and cosy form just a bit bigger than himself, where the sun might warm him until he was drowsy and he could sit in a brown ball with his feet tucked beneath his fluffy fur, his ears laid along his back, and his eyes half closed in dreamy contentment.