JUNE IN FRANC ON I A. 3 



brilliant catch being nothing more impor- 

 tant than a "beautiful lo." 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. 



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- 



