JUNE IN FRANCONIA. 3 
brilliant catch being nothing more impor- 
tant than a “beautiful Io.” The kind- 
hearted lepidopterist lingered with gracious 
emphasis upon the adjective, and assured me 
that the specimen would be all the more val- 
uable because of a finger-mark which my 
awkwardness had left upon one of its wings. 
So—to the credit of human nature be it 
spoken — so does amiability sometimes get 
the better of the feminine scientific spirit. 
To the credit of human nature, I say; for, 
though her practice of the romancer’s art 
may doubtless have given to this good lady 
some peculiar flexibility of mind, some spe- 
cial, individual facility in subordinating a 
lower truth to a higher, it surely may be 
affirmed, also, of humanity in general, that 
few things become it better than its incon- 
sistencies. . 3 
Of the four remaining members of the 
company, two were botanists, and two — for 
the time — ornithologists. But the botanists 
were lovers of birds, also, and went nowhere 
without opera-glasses; while the ornitholo- 
gists, in turn, did not hold themselves above | 
some elementary knowledge of plants, and 
amused themselves with now and then point- 
