ithologists, in turn, did not hold themselves above some elementary
knowledge of plants, and amused themselves with now and then pointing
out some rarity--sedges and willows were the special desiderata--which
the professional collectors seemed in danger of passing without notice.
All in all, we _were_ a queer set. How the Latin and Greek polysyllables
flew about the dining-room, as we recounted our forenoon's or
afternoon's discoveries! Somebody remarked once that the waiters' heads
appeared to be more or less in danger; but if the waiters trembled at
all, it was probably not for their own heads, but for ours.[1]

[1] Just how far the cause of science was advanced by all this activity
I am not prepared to say. The first ornithologist of the party published
some time ago (in _The Auk_, vol. v. p. 151) a list of our Franconia
birds, and the results of the botanists' researches among the willows
have appeared, in part at least, in different numbers of the _Bulletin
of the Torrey Botanical Club_. As for the lepidopterist, I have an
indistinct recollection that she once wrote to me of having made some
highly interesting discoveries among her Franconia collections,--several
undescribed species, as well as I can now remember; but she added that
it would be useless to go into particulars with a correspondent
entomologically so ignorant.

Our first excursion--I speak of the four who traveled on foot--was to
the Franconia Notch. It could not well have been otherwise; at all
events, there was one of the four whose feet would not willingly have
carried him in any other direction. The mountains drew us, and there was
no thought of resisting their attraction.

Love and curiosity are different, if not incompatible, sentiments; and
the birds that are dearest to the man are, for that very reason, not
most interesting to the ornithologist. When on a journey, I am almost
without eyes or ears for bluebirds and robins, song sparrows and
chickadees. Now is my opportunity for extending my acquaintance, and
such every-day favorites must get along for the time as best they can
without my attention. So it was here in Franconia. The vesper sparrow,
the veery, and a host of other friends were singing about the hotel and
along the roadside, but we heeded them not. Our case was like the boy's
who declined gingerbread, when on a visit: he had plenty of that at
home.

When we were nearly at the edge of the mountain woods, however, we heard
across