JUNE, JULY, AUGUST, AND SEPTEMBER. 163 



masses go Hoating away on the slightest zephyr. 

 Of course, there is more fun in chasing milkweed 

 down than in patiently stuffing a pillow ; so the 

 milkweed has its own way and goes sailing off to 

 scatter its seeds hither and thither, and the pillow, 

 perhaps, is filled with the aromatic balsam fir. But, 

 before the last tiny tuft of silk has escaped with 

 its balancing brown seed, we must place it under 

 the microscope and examine the bronze-colored seed 

 and the strange downy sail. Can one imagine any- 

 thing more perfect ? Place some bits of white sewing 

 silk beside the sheeny silk of Nature, and the former 

 will look like coarse, white rope. Gray must have 

 been puzzled to know how to' describe the color of 

 the milkweed's flowers ; what a predicament for Na- 

 ture to put a color-blind botanist in ! She has evi- 

 dently mixed up all the colors on her palette and 

 painted the beautiful blossoms in absolutely neutral 

 tints. Gray does not stop to analyze the color, but 

 dismisses the matter by labeling the flower " dull 

 greenish purplish." Now, if we will take the paint 

 box and mix pure green and pure purple together, 

 and then throw in a tiny bit of black to get the 

 " dull " effect, we will not approach the color of the 

 milkweed's flower. No, Nature did not produce her 

 color that way ; the flower is neither green nor pur- 

 ple, nor a mixture of those colors, but is a neutralized 



