how it died. Then she put it into Polly's hand saying, "Stand there in the light and loosen your hold slowly and easily."
Elnora caught a brush from the table and began softly stroking the creature's sides and wings. Delighted with the sensation the butterfly slowly opened and closed its wings, clinging to Polly's soft little fingers, while every one cried out in surprise. Elnora laid aside the brush, and the butterfly sailed away.
"Why, you are a wizard! You charm them!" marvelled Levering.
"I learned that from the Bird Woman," said Elnora. "She takes soft brushes and coaxes butterflies and moths into the positions she wants for the illustrations of a book she is writing. I have helped her often. Most of the rare ones I get go to her."
"Then you don't keep all you take?" questioned Levering.
"Oh, dear, no!" cried Elnora. "Not a tenth! For myself, a pair of each kind to use in illustrating the lectures I give in the city schools in the winter, and one pair for each collection I make. One might just as well keep the big night moths of June, for they only live four or five days anyway. For the Bird Woman, I only save rare ones she has not yet secured. Sometimes I think it is cruel to take such creatures from freedom, even for an hour, but it is the only way to teach the masses of people how to distinguish the pests they should destroy from the harmless ones of great beauty, and secure prop-
