ABOVE THE BIRDS 43 



idle odds and ends of the day. For the nonce I 

 had turned entomological collector. My search 

 was for rare Alpine insects. Not that I knew 

 anything about them; it would have been all 

 one to me if most of what I saw had been created 

 out of nothing the day before; but I was in 

 learned company and needed no science of my 

 own. My part was to carry a " cyanide bottle " 

 and put into it any beetle, moth, fly, or other 

 insect — ants and spiders excepted — on which 

 I could lay my ignorant fingers. The possessor 

 of the learning — enough and to spare for the 

 two of us — has made many collecting visits to 

 the summit; her list of Mount Washington 

 species numbers more than sixteen hundred, if 

 I remember the figures correctly, and no incon- 

 siderable proportion of them are honored with 

 her name. A proud lot they would be, if they 

 knew it. But the end is not yet; there are 

 many winged mountaineers still to be pinned, 

 and in the prosecution of such an enterprise, so 

 she gave me to understand, two bottles are better 

 than one, no matter who carries the second one. 

 Her language was rather encouraging than com- 

 plimentary, it might have seemed, but I did not 

 mind ; and for seven days I was never without a 

 bottle about my person except when I lay in bed. 

 If I went down to the Lakes of the Clouds, 



