32 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



nothing for it but to play the looker-on and 

 listener. In that part I hope I was less of 

 a failure. 



The enthusiastic pursuit of special know- 

 ledge, persisted in year after year, is a phe- 

 nomenon as well worth study as the song 

 and nesting habits of a thrush or a sparrow ; 

 and I gladly put myself to school, not only 

 this forenoon, but as often as I found the 

 opportunity. One day my mentor told me 

 that she hoped she had discoverd a new 

 flea ! She kept, as I knew, a couple of pet 

 deer-mice, and it seemed that some almost 

 microscopic fleas had left them for a bunch 

 of cotton wherein the mice were accustomed 

 to roll themselves up in the daytime. These 

 minute creatures the entomologist had 

 pounced upon, clapped into a bottle, and 

 sent off straightway to the American flea 

 specialist, who lived somewhere in Alabama. 

 In a few days she should hear from him, 

 and perhaps, if the species were undescribed, 

 there would be a flea named in her honor. 1 



1 The species was not new. A Maine collector had an- 

 ticipated her, I believe. Whether his name was given to 

 the flea I did not learn or have forgotten. 



