of his hole, and sat for a moment in 
the sun. Before he could be reached, 
however, he had returned to it. In six 
weeks and three days he again came 
out, and what was surprising, he did 
not appear to have forgotten any of 
his friends, of whom he had many 
among the cats, dogs, and rabbits of 
the neighborhood, trotting about among 
them on his hind legs. A cruel boy 
and a savage dog ended the life of this 
harmless little animal. C. C. M. 
FLOWERS WIT H HORNS AND CLAWS. 
E. F. MOSBY. 
THE milkweed is best known to 
most of us by its pods — long, 
rough cases, packed close with 
shining white silk attached to 
little brown seeds. The lightest wind 
that blows can carry these a stage or 
two on their journey with such lovely 
silken sails. But perhaps everyone has 
not noticed one rather strange thing 
about them. Almost always there are 
two pods, one vigorous of growth, 
large and full; the other stunted and 
ill-formed. They are like the two 
brothers or sisters of Fairy Tales, one 
fair and well-favored and gracious, the 
other ill-grown and dwarfish. But why 
this is so, is one of the many secrets of 
the milkweed. 
It is quite a large family of flowers, or 
weeds, as you may choose to call them. 
There is the gorgeous -orange-colored 
butterfly weed, always surrounded by 
hovering or fluttering butterflies, most 
of them also orange or yellow in their 
coloring; the fragrant, rose-colored 
milkweed of June, the purple milk- 
weed and its cousin of the marsh. 
But it is the common milkweed that is 
called the horned herb. It was once 
thought possessed of many healing 
virtues when the business of gathering 
and drying herbs was more important 
than it is now. Yet one needs no idea 
of this kind to look with interest 
on this curiously formed plant which 
grows in such profusion by the dusty 
roadside or by our very doorstep. A 
milky juice exudes from the stem when- 
ever a flower is gathered, and the pol- 
len is in such sticky masses that a fee- 
ble insect is often caught and cannot 
escape with its fatal treasure. 
The blossom cluster, reflexed so 
oddly, is pretty and quaint at first 
sight, but as we look deeper we find 
some unknown law of fives has ruled 
its structure — the recurved calyx is five- 
parted, so too the deeply recurved 
corolla; five stamens there are surround- 
ing, like a circle of courtiers, a fairy 
king and queen, the two pistils in the 
center, above which hangs "a large five- 
angled disk," an awning of state. But 
oddest of all is the crown of five- 
hooded nectaries above the corolla, 
each nectary enclosings incurved horn. 
Is not this a strange honey-cup with 
the horn concealed under the silky 
flower-hood? The insects love the 
banquet thus spread for their delight 
and no doubt they know the secrets of 
the blossom. 
There is another family of wild flow- 
ers that abounds in horns and claws, es- 
pecially the latter — the large crowfoot 
family. The hook-beaked crowfoot 
has little one-seeded fruits with long 
and hooked beaks, like those of birds 
of prey, collected into a head. The 
wild columbine, nodding so merrily 
from the high rocks, and the larkspur, 
have hooked spurs and claws and the 
larkspur hides its long spurs in its 
calyx. But the monk's-hood is the 
more interesting of all. 
In early days, before stamens and 
pistils are ready for open air and wan- 
dering insects or pattering showers, 
you may find a dark blue bud in the 
meadow. The calyx is large and 
showy and blue like a flower, and its 
curved front sepals close the entrance 
before while the hindmost sepal, like 
a soldier's helmet, or a monk's hood, 
comes down over all as a covering. 
Then the sun shines and the blossom 
ripens and it is time to open. 
Wide fly the little doors, back falls 
the blue hood, and the golden heart 
of stamens and pistils is ready with a 
welcome. But where are the petals? 
Hidden under the hood are two tiny 
hammer-like claws, the only petals this 
flower possesses. 
