Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

back and forth between going for a tramp in the woods, or staying at home and sketching some of the flowers in our garden. The latter, I felt was a duty to my career as a designer. I had just about decided that already having a large number of flower sketches I could take a walk to the woods, when the distant rumble of thunder came to my ears, and on looking out, saw that the western sky was blockaded by a mass of black clouds.

     A storm being imminent, I abandoned my woods ramble, and instead took a stroll thru our garden, which though a short one was not altogether without some phenomenon to note - these walks never are!  Two rare visitors to our flowers I saw - a comma and monarch butterfly, both of which appeared, by reason of their immaculate condition, to have just emerged from their pupa cases. Soldier-beetles, are thick on the Plumed Celosias, These beetles, like many species of another group (the scaven­gers)