ABOVE THE BIRDS 45 



fell a victim to my uninstructed zeal. He died 

 easily, for aU his undevout habits, but the sac- 

 rifice was useless. He proved to be no longer 

 among the entomologist's desiderata, though he 

 also is Alpine, and it is not many years since 

 she herself discovered him here, an insect till 

 then unregistered by human science. 



All caterpillars I was bidden to bring in alive ; 

 and so, of course, I did, rolling them up in 

 scraps of soft paper and committing them ten- 

 derly to a pocket. My chief business, however, 

 after I had breathed the air, eaten my fill of 

 mountain blueberries (" Happy," said I, " is the 

 mouth that feeds on such manna "), and looked 

 my fill at the northern peaks, — for I was not 

 employed by the day, but by the piece, and 

 could steal an hour to myself now and then with 

 a clear conscience, — my principal occupation, I 

 say, was to pry under the boulders for beetles. 

 "Leave no stone unturned," the entomologist 

 had said, with her fine gift of laconic quotation ; 

 but she could not have intended the commission 

 to be taken literally. The stones were too 

 many, and human existence is too brief. She 

 meant no more than that I should use a reason- 

 able diligence ; and so much I surely did, till 

 the ends of my fingers were in danger of being 

 skinned alive. Down on all fours I got, lifted a 



