“Not exactly,” answered Ned, “but we are trying to decide where to go in our motor boat for our vacation. Perhaps you can help us out.”
“I’m afraid not,” the professor replied. “I never took a vacation in my life, and I do not know where would be a good place to spend one. I know where I am going this summer.”
“Where?” asked Jerry.
“I am going to Florida, to search for a very rare butterfly. It is pink, with blue and gold wings, and a certain museum has offered me five thousand dollars for a perfect specimen. It is to be found in Florida only, and I am off for the everglades next week.”
“That’s a lot of money for a butterfly,” remarked Ned.
“Yes, but the museum can afford it,” went on the scientist. “No other scientific place in the world has this kind of a butterfly and the museum I speak of will be the envy of all the others. But it is not only for the money that would come to me that I would like to get that butterfly.
“If I succeed I hope to get a position with the museum. A sort of commission to travel for them into all parts of the world after curious bugs and relics. That is my ambition, and that is why I am going to try for this butterfly. It means a great deal to me, as, all my life, I have wanted to be on the staff of some good museum, in order to search for curiosities for it. So you see it is not only the five thousand dollars I am after, though, of course that sum will be very acceptable.”
“Do you think you can find the butterfly?” asked Mr. Slade, much interested.
“I hope so,” replied Uriah Snodgrass. “As I have said, it is very rare, and very difficult to catch. I have read of a number of specimens being found but they were in poor condition, or discolored, and it is for the rare coloring of this species that it is desired by the museum.”
“I hope you are successful,” answered Ned’s father. “I have often wondered, when looking at the collection of insects in a museum, how they got so many different kinds. Now I understand. It is due to the efforts of such men as you.”