Camping

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1. Camping - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Car camping" is camping in a tent, but nearby the car for easier access and for supply storage.
Varsity Scouts of the Boy Scouts of...
[en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camping]

2. Camping Islote las Gaviotas - Valparaiso / cabaña, acampar, pesca, piscina, bosque, playa, familia, amigos
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3. Camping - Wikipédia
Le camping est surtout un moyen de logement pendant les vacances . On peut camper sous une tente , utiliser une caravane , un clip car ou un...
[fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camping]

4. Editing Camping (section) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Editing Camping (section)
Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camping "
[en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Camping&action=edit§ion=5]

5. Norsk Camping Guide
Norwegian Camping Guide 2008
CAMPING CARD SCANDINAVIA
[www.camping.no/index_eng.html]

6. Campeggi Italia - Camping Italy - Villaggi Italia
Camping Cavallino - Camping Jesolo - Camping Chioggia - Camping Lazise - Camping Domaso - Camping Iseo - Camping Levico Terme - Camping Albenga - Camping Ceriale - Camping Sestri Levante - Camping Cannobio - Campeggi...
[www.campeggi.com/]

7. Agritourism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Types of Adventure travel Accessible tourism · Adventure travel · Camping · Hiking · Agritourism · Backpacker tourism · Bicycle touring · Disaster tourism · Ecotourism · Extreme tourism · Flashpacking · Free Independent Traveler · Geocaching...
[en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agritourism]

8. Camping and Caravanning Club - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Camping and Caravanning Club is a United Kingdom not-for-profit organisation for all kinds of camping .
Since turning 100 years old the Club...
[en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camping_and_Caravanning_Club]

9. Camping (microframework) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Camping is a web application framework which consistently stays at less than 4.5kb of code. The complete source code can be viewed on a single...
[en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camping_%28microframework%29]

10. Touvez un camping en France
Plus de 10000 adresses pour trouver un camping en France !
Nom du camping :
[www.descampings.fr/]

11. Camping USA!
Camping and Campground Links Resources to help you plan your next camping trip or make a campground reservation National Campground Directory Search for a campground...
[www.camping-usa.com/]

12. Camping - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Camping is a leisure activity where people leave their homes and spend one or more nights outdoors, usually to enjoy nature or a different environment...
[simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camping]

13. Camping. Camping-Urlaub - Camping mit Caravan, Campingplatz, Campingplätze - Camping Urlaub im Wohnwagen / Wohnmobil
Camping * Campingplätze * Urlaub * Campingplatz * Camping Urlaub - Campingplätze für Caravan und Wohnmobil Camping
Beispiele für Natur Camping und Öko Camping ist die Elbtalaue in Niedersachsen.
[www.camping-urlaub.de/]

14. Camping, a Microframework
Once installed, camping your.camping.rb will launch an application on port 3301.
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15. Discuter:Camping - Wikipédia
J'en ai mis une, c'est toujours ça. Rien n'empêche d'en mettre d'autres. Et cet article pourrait être pas mal étoffé...
[fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discuter:Camping]

16. Campeggi Emilia Romagna - Camping Emilia Romagna
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Spina Camping Village
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International Camping Piomboni
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Camping & Natura
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[www.campeggi.com/campeggi_emilia_romagna.asp?r=Emilia]

17. Site de la Fédération québécoise de camping et de caravaning, l'association des campeurs québécois
La Fédération québécoise de camping et de caravaning : dans l’intérêt des campeurs depuis 40 ans
Organisme sans but lucratif, la Fédération québécoise de camping...
[www.fqcc.ca/camping-en-chiffre.php]

18. Vacances camping en France, Espagne, Portugal, Italie, Croatie, location mobil home : via-camping
Location camping - Via-camping Avec Via-camping, choisissez la location mobil home - mistercamp camping location camping en France , Espagne , Italie , Croatie , Portugal et aussi: Vende...
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19. Camping Trentino Alto Adige - Campeggi Trentino Alto Adige
Camping Lago di Levico
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[www.campeggi.com/campeggi_trentino.asp?r=Trentino]

20. Camping - Wikipedia
Camping er en variant av turisme hvor man bor i telt , campingvogn , bobil eller lignende, men ikke på hotell eller vandrerhjem eller under åpen himmel...
[no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camping]

21. Campeggi Piemonte - Camping Piemonte
Camping Village Isolino
Camping Continental Lido
CAMPING VILLAGE LAGO MAGGIORE
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Camping Parisi
CAMPING CONTINENTAL LIDO
Camping Royal
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Camping...
[www.campeggi.com/campeggi_piemonte.asp?r=Piemonte]

22. Camping Ferrara - Campeggi Ferrara
A Lido degli Scacchi il CampingSpiaggia eMare offre ai turisti una spiaggia lunghissima ed una serie di stabilimenti balneari con attrattive e divertimenti per grandi...
[www.campeggi.com/camping_Ferrara.asp]

23. Pages that link to Camping - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pages that link to Camping
The following pages link to Camping
[en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Camping]

24. Camping en france. Annuaire officiel des 11000 campings. Guide Officiel Camping Caravaning
• Camping-Car Magazine
• Camping et Caravaning - Le Caravanier
Reprendre un camping
• Petites annonces de vente de camping
Recherchez votre camping
Les 11000 terrains de camping...
[www.campingfrance.com/]

25. Camping Isola d'Elba - Campeggi Isola d'Elba
Oltre a un fantastico panorama marino e faunistico, l’Elba offre spiagge pulite, natura “selvaggia e incontaminata”, e una serie di attività gestite dai camping...
[www.campeggi.com/camping_Isola_d_Elba.asp]

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27. Category:Camping - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Category:Camping
The main article for this category is Camping .
[+] Camping equipment (2)
Pages in category "Camping"
Camping and Caravanning Club
Canoe camping
Hammock camping...
[en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Camping]

28. Norsk Camping Guide
Norsk Camping Guide 2008
CAMPING CARD SCANDINAVIA
NHO Reiseliv Servicekontor. Camping
[www.camping.no/buskerud.html]

29. Campeggi Valle Aosta - Camping Valle Aosta
Camping Arvier
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Camping Du Parc
Camping International Touring
Camping Aiguille Noire
Camping Grandes Jorasses
Camping Margherita
Camping Monte Bianco
Camping Pineta
Camping...
[www.campeggi.com/campeggi_aosta.asp?r=Aosta]

30. Camping Lago d'Idro - Campeggi Lago d'Idro
Ideale punto di soggiorno è il Camping Adamello. Situato a quota 800metri su un altopiano particolarmente panoramico, il campeggio gode di una splendida vista sul...
[www.campeggi.com/camping_Lago_d_Idro.asp]

31. British Columbia Campgrounds - Super Camping British Columbia
Camping and RVing in British Columbia
camping.bc.ca
Camping Search
View Super Camping Guide
Camping By Region
Home | Camping | Lodging | RV | Regions | Maps | About...
[www.camping.bc.ca/]

32. Tervetuloa Suomen Camping -alueille! - Camping, Finland, Finnland - Suomen Leirintäalueyhdistys ry
Selaa leirintäalueita vasemmalla olevan valikon avulla. Löydät lisäksi tietoa Camping -lehdestä, Camping -kortista ja muista yleisistä asioista yläreunan päävalikosta. Leirintäaluetiedot perustuvat yrittäjiltä saatuihin tietoihin.
[www.camping.fi/template_page1.asp?lang=1&sua=2&s=528]

33. Camping in France: official website of 11 000 campsites in France, equipments, tariffs
• Camping-Car Magazine
• Camping et Caravaning - Le Caravanier
Search for your camping
City or camping site name
• Your holidays in camping club
• Camping Indigo, the...
[www.campingfrance.com/index.jsp?lg=uk]

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THE CARE OF PETS

In this chapter on pets, I regret exceedingly that I cannot say much in favor of the family cat. Like nearly all children, I was brought up to love kittens and to admire their playful, cunning ways. When a kitten becomes a cat my love for it ceases. Cats will do so many mean, dishonorable things, and will catch so many song birds and so few rats and mice that it simply has become a question whether we shall like the song birds or the cat. So many people do like cats that it is unfair perhaps to condemn the whole race for the misdeeds of a few. If a cat is carefully watched or if we put a bell on its neck, these precautions will to a certain extent keep the cat from catching birds, but most people have something better to do than to act as guardian for a cat. The fact is that a cat is a stupid animal seldom showing any real affection or loyalty for its owner and possessing but little intelligence. It is very difficult to teach a cat even the simplest tricks. We never know when a cat will turn on its best friend. They have the “tiger” instinct of treachery. A cat which one minute is contentedly purring on our lap may sink its claws into us the next.
The only way to force a cat to catch mice is to keep it half starved. Then instead of catching mice, it will probably go after birds if there are any in the neigborhood. I have shut a cat up in a room with a mouse and it is doubtful whether the cat or the mouse were the more frightened. The cat does more damage to the song birds of this country than any other enemy they have. If kept at home and well fed, cats sometimes become so fat and stupid that they will not molest birds but this is due to laziness and not to any good qualities in the cat. In normal condition they are natural hunters.
The habits of a cat are unclean, its unearthly cries at night are extremely disagreeable and altogether it is a nuisance. A famous naturalist, Shaler, once said “A cat is the only animal that has been tolerated, esteemed and at times worshipped without having a single distinctly valuable quality.”
A few years ago a quail had a nest under a rock opposite my house. Quail raise their young like poultry rather than like robins or wrens or the other song birds. As soon as the tiny quail chicks are hatched, the mother takes them around like a hen with a brood of chickens. This mother quail was my especial care and study. She became so tame that I could feed her. Finally she hatched out ten tiny brown balls of feathers. Our cat had been watching her, too, but not from the same motives and one day the cat came home with the mother quail in her mouth. She ran under the porch just out of reach and calmly ate it. The little brood were too small to look out for themselves so of course they all died or fell an easy victim to other cats. The mother was probably an easy prey because in guarding the young, a quail will pretend to have a broken wing and struggle along to attract attention to her and away from her little ones, who scurry to high grass for safety. I have never been very friendly to cats since I witnessed this episode.
It has been estimated that the average domestic cat kills an average of one song bird a day during the season when the birds are with us. In certain sections a cat has been known to destroy six nests of orioles, thrushes and bobolinks in a single day. The worst offenders are cats that live around barns and old houses in a half wild condition. Many people who say they “haven’t the heart to kill a cat” will take it away from home and drop it along the road. A thoughtless act like this may mean the death of a hundred birds in that neigborhood. It takes less heart to kill the cat than to kill the birds. So much for the cat.

Birds make splendid pets, but in keeping them in captivity, we must be sure that we are not violating the game laws of the state we live in. Nearly everywhere it is unlawful to keep in cages any native song birds or those that destroy harmful insects—the so-called “insectivorous birds.” This includes thrushes, wrens, robins, bluebirds, orioles or, in fact, practically all birds but crows, blackbirds and kingfishers. It does not cover canaries, parrots, or any birds that are not native. It is an excellent law and every boy or girl should act as a special policeman to see that his friends and companions do not molest either birds or their nests. It is cruel to cage a wild bird anyway for a cage is nothing but a prison. There is no law against taming the birds or making friends of them and after all this is the most satisfactory way.
If we build houses for the birds to nest in, provide feed for them and in other ways do what we can to attract them, they will soon learn that we are their friends. We must study their habits and always avoid frightening them. Next to a cat, the worst enemies of our song birds are the English sparrows. A sparrow is always fair game for the boy with a slingshot or rifle. In many places these sparrows have driven practically all the other birds out of the neigborhood, have robbed their nests and in other ways have shown themselves to be a public nuisance. Until 1869 there were no sparrows in this country and now they are more numerous than any other variety of birds, and sooner or later, the Government will have to take steps to exterminate them or we shall have no song birds at all.
The usual size of a bird house is six inches square and about eight inches high. It should always be made of old weather-beaten boards in order not to frighten away its prospective tenants by looking like a trap of some kind. The chances are that the sparrows will be the first birds to claim a house unless we keep a close watch and drive them away.
One way to keep them out is to make the entrance doorway too small for them to enter. A hole an inch in diameter will admit a wren or chickadee and bar out a sparrow, but it will also keep out most of the other birds. The usual doorway should be two inches in diameter. It is surprising how soon after we build our bird house we find a tiny pair making their plans to occupy it and to take up housekeeping. Sometimes this will happen the same day the bird house is set up. Always provide some nesting material near at hand; linen or cotton thread, ravellings, tow, hair and excelsior are all good. Of course we must not attempt to build the nest. No one is skillful enough for that.
Nearly all of our native birds are migratory, that is they go south for the winter. The date that we may look for them to return is almost the same year after year. Some few birds—bluebirds, robins, cedar birds and song sparrows will stay all winter if it is mild but as a rule we must not expect the arrival of the feathered songsters until March. The phoebe bird is about the first one we shall see.
In April look for the brown thrasher, catbird, wren, barn, eave and tree swallows, martins, king birds and chipping sparrows. In May the principal birds of our neigborhood will return—thrushes, vireos, tanagers, grosbeaks, bobolinks, orioles. The game birds—quail, partridge, meadowlarks and pheasants do not migrate as a rule. At least they do not disappear for a time and then return. When they leave a neigborhood, they rarely come back to it.
All the song birds begin nesting in May. Consequently we should have our bird houses “ready for occupancy” May 1st. It will take about twelve days for most birds to hatch their eggs. Some varieties will hatch three broods in a season, but two is the usual rule.
We shall require a great deal of patience to tame the wild birds. Some bird lovers have succeeded in teaching birds to feed from their hands. A wild bird that is once thoroughly frightened can probably never be tamed again.
A crow is a very interesting pet. Crows are especially tamable and may be allowed full liberty around the dooryard. We must get a young one from the nest just before it is ready to fly. Crows are great thieves and are attracted by bright objects. If you have a tame crow, and if any member of your household misses jewellery or thimbles you had better look in the crows’ nest before you think that burglars have been around.
The chief difference between tamed wild animals, such as squirrels, birds, owls, foxes, crows and so on, and the domesticated animals and birds, dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, pigeons and chickens, lies in the possibility with the latter of modifying nature and breeding for certain special markings, colors or size. All breeds of chickens from the little bantams to the enormous Brahmas have been bred from a wild species of chicken found in India and called the jungle fowl.
All the great poultry shows held throughout the country annually are for the purpose of exhibiting the most perfectly marked specimens of the breeders’ skill. This is decided by judges who award prizes. The competition is sometimes very keen. In barred Plymouth Rock chickens, for example, there are sometimes a hundred birds entered to compete for a single prize. The breeders are called fanciers. The principal breeders of certain animals such as rabbits, pigeons or poultry, form an association or club and agree to an imaginary type of the animal called the ideal or “Standard of Perfection.”
For example, the breeders of white fantail pigeons agree that perfect birds shall be of certain shape and size, with the head resting on the back just at the base of the tail; the tail should be spread out like a fan and contain at least twenty-eight feathers. These feathers should be laced on the ends. The model fantail should have a nervous jerky motion and never be at rest. Each of these points is given a certain value on a scale of marking and in judging the birds they are marked just as you may be in your lessons at school. The fancier tries to breed a bird that comes the nearest to this model. The prizes are sometimes of great value.
There is an enormous list of breeds in nearly all varieties of animals and poultry. In pigeons alone there are carriers, pouters, tumblers, baldheads, beards, dragoons, barbs, jacobins, Antwerps, turbits, owls, orientals, damoscenes, capuchins, fantails, trumpeters, swifts, Lahores, Burmese, Scandaroons, magpies, nuns, Archangels, runts and so on.
These birds are very different in appearance, the pouter, for example, has the power of inflating his crop until it puffs out in front as large as a baseball. Jacobins or as they are commonly called, “ruffle-necks,” have an immense ruffle of feathers like a feather boa. Dragoons have a huge wart on the bill as large as an almond. The tumblers are so named from their habit of turning backward somersaults during flight.
Almost every one who starts keeping domestic pets either soon tires of the sport or becomes a fancier. The care of common pigeons is a very simple matter. The principal thing is a good loft or cote for them in the top of a barn or house. They will practically take care of themselves and after a few years greatly increase in numbers.
A model pigeon house for breeding fancy pigeons requires separate mating boxes, nests and other appliances. It would be impossible to make much of a success with fancy pigeons if they are allowed their liberty to fly about and mate at will.
The best nest boxes for pigeons are rough earthenware pans, eight inches across, which may be bought cheaply at a bird store. The floor of the cote should be covered with sawdust or gravel to the depth of half an inch. Pigeons that are confined should be fed regularly on a mixture of small grains and cracked corn. They should also be given cracked oyster shells, grit and charcoal occasionally. A pigeon loft should be rat proof and clean.
It is very doubtful whether there is any money in raising pigeons or squabs for market. Fanciers never sell their output for market purposes unless it is to get rid of surplus or undesirable stock. A breeder who is successful in winning prizes with birds of his “strain” as it is called will find a ready market with other breeders for all the birds he cares to sell. Prize winning birds sometimes bring a hundred dollars a pair. It is by no means easy to breed prizewinners and the chances are that the beginner will be a buyer of stock rather than a seller.
Homing pigeons or as they are commonly called, carriers, are not bred for special markings like fancy pigeons but because of their power and speed in flight. A carrier has the “homing” instinct more fully developed than any other animal. In some homing pigeon races, the birds have made speed records of over a mile a minute for many hours and have flown over a thousand miles. If a well-bred homing pigeon fails to return to his home loft it is almost a certainty that he is either forcibly detained or that he has been killed by hunters or hawks. Never try to capture a pigeon that may stop for a rest at your loft. He may be in a race and his owner may be waiting for his return five hundred miles away when every minute counts in winning a prize.
Another large class of birds that make fine pets although they are not strictly in the class of birds bred by the fancier are the ornamental land and water fowl. The chief objection to these birds as pets is the expense of buying them. The list of birds in this class is very large. In swans the leading varieties are mute, American whistling, black Australian, white Berwick and black-necked swans. The largest class are the pheasants. They are exceedingly beautiful, especially the golden, silver, Lady Amherst, Elliott, Reeves, green Japanese, Swinhoe, English ring neck, Melanotis, and Torquatis pheasants. The common wild geese are Egyptian, Canadian, white-fronted, Sebastopol, snow, brant, bar-headed, spin-winged and many others. In ducks, there are mallards, black, wood, mandarin, blue and green winged teal, widgeon, redhead, pin-tail, bluebill, gadwell, call and many others. Beside pheasants, ducks and geese there are also the various storks, cranes, pea-fowl and herons in the “ornamental fowl” list.
These are all wild fowl. The commoner varieties will cost from six to fifteen dollars a pair and the rare ones several hundred. To keep the semi-wild birds from flying away they are usually pinioned, a process of taking off the end joint of one wing. The colors of some of the ornamental fowl are more beautiful than any birds in nature. Pheasants especially are easily cared for and make interesting pets. They can be tamed and if kept outdoors they will seldom be subject to disease. Most of these birds are as easily cared for as chickens.

Rabbits make fine pets for boys and girls. They are clean in their habits, hardy and gentle. The common kinds are white rabbits with pink eyes or albinos, and brown rabbits or Belgian hares. With rabbits also there is a “fancy.” The Fur Fanciers’ Association recognizes the following distinct breeds: Belgians, Flemish giants, Dutch marked, English, Himalayan, silvers, tans, Polish, lops, and Angoras.
A rabbit hutch or coop is easily built from old packing boxes. One third of the coop should be darkened and made into a nest, with an entrance door outside and the rest simply covered with a wire front, also with a door for cleaning and feeding. The hutch should stand on legs above ground as rabbits do not thrive well in dampness. They will, however, live out all winter in a dry place. A box four feet long and two feet wide will hold a pair of rabbits nicely. Rabbits will become very tame and may often be allowed full liberty about the place if there are no dogs to molest them.
The drawing shows a standard type of rabbit hutch. A boy who is handy with tools can easily build one. We can always dispose of the increase in our rabbit family to friends or to dealers.
Guinea pigs or cavies are similar to rabbits in their requirements. The chief difference is that guinea pigs cannot stand excessive cold and will not do well if kept outside in severe winter weather. Rabbits and cavies will eat almost anything and eat constantly. The usual feed is hay, clover, wheat, corn, carrots, turnips, cabbage, lettuce, celery, potato parings, or any green food or grains. Cavies are especially fond of bread and milk.
The three classes of cavies are Peruvians or Angoras, with long silky hair; Abyssinians, with coarse hair in tufts or rosettes, and the common guinea pig or smooth, cavy. A pair of cavies will cost about two dollars. A dry airy cellar is a good place to keep them as they are cleanly in their habits. Neither cavies nor rabbits are especially intelligent but they do learn to know their master or at least the one who feeds them. Pet rats and mice are in the same class as rabbits but they should always have a coop that they will not gnaw out of. There is even a mouse club. It is in Europe and has over a thousand members.
An interesting example of skill in breeding is seen in Dutch belted varieties of cattle, in hogs, rabbits, cavies and mice. In all of these animals the same markings have been bred by careful crossing and selection. In all lines of “fancy” it is important to stick to a few varieties. We shall never make much of a success if we have half a dozen kinds of chickens, pigeons or rabbits. By far the most important “fancy” is with chickens, but this subject will be considered in the chapter on the care of poultry.
Among other pets are tame squirrels, turtles, snakes, lizards and toads. A tame gray squirrel makes a splendid pet. After a while we can give our squirrel full liberty and find him back in his nest at night. I once had a tame owl but I found that because of his habit of flying and feeding at night he was a very stupid pet. Besides that his powerful beak and sharp claws or talons were dangerous. I also once had a pair of flying squirrels but they also only appear at night and were consequently uninteresting in the daytime. We must always study the natural habits of our pets and try to give them coops and food as much like nature as possible. My flying squirrels were given soft feed in place of the usual hard-shelled nuts. Consequently their teeth grew so long that they were a positive deformity. We finally liberated them but before they could get to a place of safety one of them was caught and killed by a chicken. The poor little creature was so fat from overfeeding and lack of exercise that he had all but lost the power of using his legs.
Coops for pets may be as elaborate as our pocketbook will allow. The important things to remember are to construct a coop so that it may be cleaned easily, and to provide plenty of ventilation. It must also be dry. Fresh air is as important for animals as for people. The larger we can make a coop, the better it will be. Be careful not to overfeed pets. Regular and frequent meals of just what they will eat up clean is better than an occasional big meal. Rabbits require very little water. Usually they will obtain enough moisture from the green food they eat. It is a mistake, however, to think that water will kill rabbits. Change the straw in the nest boxes frequently. When they make fur nests do not disturb them.
For squirrels and other small animals, the coop may be made entirely of wire except the baseboard, which should be a piece of seasoned wood. Be sure that there are no sharp wire points or projecting nails in a coop to injure the animals.
The whole secret of taming wild creatures is patience. We must try to show them that we are their friends. The most direct way to an animal’s heart is through his stomach, which is another way of saying that the owner should personally feed his own pets if he wishes them to know him.
There is really no reason why a country boy or girl should have any caged pets at all. In the city it is different. Perhaps the best pet for the unnatural conditions of city life is a canary. The real spirit to develop a love for the little creatures that inhabit our woods and fields is to feel that they are our friends rather than that they are prisoners. By all means cultivate the acquaintance of your “small country neigbors.”

NATURE STUDY

What is a true naturalist?--How to start a collection—Moth
collecting—The Herbarium

There is nothing in the world that will bring more pleasure into the life of a boy or girl than to cultivate a love for nature. It is one of the joys of life that is as free as the air we breathe. A nature student need never be lonely or at a loss for friends or companions. The birds and the bugs are his acquaintances. Whenever he goes afield there is something new or interesting to see and to observe. He finds—
“----tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones and good in everything.”
To love nature and her mysteries does not necessarily mean to be some kind of a queer creature running around with a butterfly net or an insect box. A true naturalist is simply a man or boy who keeps his eyes and ears open. He will soon find that nature is ready to tell him many secrets. After a time, the smell of the woods, the chirp of a cricket and the rustling of the wind in the pines become his pleasures.
The reason that people do not as a rule know more about nature is simply because their minds are too full of other things. They fail to cultivate the power of accurate observation, which is the most important thing of all. A practical start in nature study is to go out some dewy morning and study the first spider web you come across, noting how wonderfully this little creature makes a net to catch its food just as we make nets to catch fish, how the web is braced with tiny guy ropes to keep the wind from blowing it away in a way similar to the method an engineer would use in securing a derrick or a tall chimney. When a fly or bug happens to become entangled in its meshes, the spider will dart out quickly from its hiding place and if the fly is making a violent struggle for life will soon spin a ribbon-like web around it which will hold it secure, just as we might attempt to secure a prisoner or wild animal that was trying to make its escape, by binding it with ropes. A spider makes a very interesting pet and the surest way to overcome the fear that many people have of spiders is to know more about them.
There is no need to read big books or listen to dry lectures to study nature. In any square foot that you may pick out at random in your lawn you will find something interesting if you will look for it. Some tiny bug will be crawling around in its little world, not aimlessly but with some definite purpose in view. To this insect the blades of grass are almost like mighty trees and the imprint of your heel in the ground may seem like a valley between mountains. To get an adequate idea of the myriads of insects that people the fields, we should select a summer day just as the sun is about to set. The reflection of its waning rays on their wings will show countless thousands of flying creatures in places where, if we did not take the trouble to observe, we might think there were none.
There is one very important side to nature that must not be overlooked. It consists in knowing that we shall find a thousand things that we cannot explain to one that we fully understand. Education of any kind consists more in knowing when to say “I don’t know and no one else knows either” than to attempt a foolish explanation of an unexplainable thing.
If you ask “why a cat has whiskers,” or why and how they make a purring noise when they are pleased and wag their tails when they are angry, while a dog wags his to show pleasure, the wisest man cannot answer your question. A teacher once asked a boy about a cat’s whiskers and he said they were to keep her from trying to get her body through a hole that would not admit her head without touching her whiskers.
No one can explain satisfactorily why the sap runs up in a tree and by some chemical process carries from the earth the right elements to make leaves, blossoms or fruit. Nature study is not “why?” It is “how.” We all learn in everyday life how a hen will take care of a brood of chicks or how a bee will go from blossom to blossom to sip honey. Would it not also be interesting to see how a little bug the size of a pin head will burrow into the stem of an oak leaf and how the tree will grow a house around him that will be totally unlike the rest of the branches or leaves. That is an “oak gall.” If you carefully cut a green one open you will find the bug in the center or in the case of a dried one that we often find on the ground, we can see the tiny hole where he has crawled out.
Did you ever know that some kinds of ants will wage war on other kinds and make slaves of the prisoners just as our ancestors did in the olden times with human beings? Did you ever see a play-ground where the ants have their recreation just as we have ball fields and dancing halls? Did you ever hear of a colony of ants keeping a cow? It is a well-known fact that they do, and they will take their cow out to pasture and bring it in and milk it and then lock it up for the night just as you might do if you were a farm boy. The “ants’ cow” is a species of insect called “aphis” that secretes from its food a sweet kind of fluid called “honey dew.”
The ten thousand things that we can learn in nature could no more be covered in a chapter in this book than the same space could cover a history of the world. I have two large books devoted to the discussion of a single kind of flower, the “orchid.” It is estimated that there are about two hundred thousand kinds of flowers, so for this subject alone, we should need a bookshelf over a mile long. This is not stated to discourage any one for of course no one can learn all there is to know about any subject. Most people are content not to learn anything or even see anything that is not a part of their daily life.
The only kind of nature study worth while is systematic. It is not safe to trust too much to the memory. Keep a diary and record in it even the most simple things for future reference. All sorts of items can be written in such a book. As it is your own personal affair, you need not try to make it a work of literary merit. Have entries such as these:
First frost—Oct. 3rd
First snow--3 inches Thanksgiving day
Skating—December 3rd
Weather clear and bright on Candlemas day, Feb. 2nd and
therefore ground-hog saw his shadow
Heard crows cawing—Feb. 18th. Last year—Jan. 26th
Saw first robin—March 14th
Last snow—April 28th
There is scarcely anything in nature that is not interesting and in some way useful. Perhaps you will say “How about a bat?” As a matter of fact a bat is one of our best friends because he will spend the whole night catching mosquitoes. But some one will say “he flies into your hair and is covered with a certain kind of disgusting vermin.” Did you ever know of a bat flying into any one’s hair? And as for the vermin science tells us that they are really his favorite food so it is unlikely that he would harbor a colony of them very long.
The subject of snakes is one in which there is more misinformation than any other common thing. There are only three venomous kinds of snakes in America. They are the rattlesnake, copperhead and moccasin. All of them can be distinguished by a deep pit behind the eye, which gives them the name of “pit vipers.” The general impression that puff adders, pilots, green snakes or water snakes are poisonous is absolutely wrong, and as for hoop snakes and the snake with a sting in his tail that all boys have heard about, they are absolutely fairy tales like “Jack and the Bean Stalk” or “Alice in Wonderland.” We have all heard about black snakes eight or ten feet long that will chase you and wind themselves around your neck, but of the many hundreds of black snakes that a well known naturalist has seen he states that he never saw one that did not do its best to escape if given half a chance. Why so much misinformation about snakes exists is a mystery.
Nature study has recently been introduced into schools and it is a very excellent way to have the interesting things pointed out to us until our eyes are trained to see for ourselves. The usual methods of nature study may be roughly divided into, 1. Keeping pets. 2. Bird study. 3. Insect study. 4. Systematic study of flowers and plants. 5. Wild animal life. The basis of nature study consists in making collections. A collection that we have made for ourselves of moths or flowers, for instance, is far more interesting than a stamp or coin collection where we buy our specimens. If we go afield and collect for ourselves, the cost is practically nothing and we have the benefit of being in the air and sunshine.
One kind of collecting is absolutely wrong—that of birds’ eggs, nests or even the birds themselves. Our little feathered songsters are too few now and most states have very severe penalties for killing or molesting them. A nature student must not be a lawbreaker.
The outfit for a butterfly or moth collection is very simple and inexpensive. We shall need an insect net to capture our specimens. This can be made at home from a piece of stiff wire bent into the shape of a flattened circle about a foot across. Fasten the ring securely to a broom handle and make a cheesecloth net the same diameter as the ring and about two feet deep.

It is very cruel to run a pin through insects and to allow them slowly to torture to death. An insect killer that is generally used is called “the cyanide bottle.” Its principle ingredient, cyanide of potassium is a harmless looking white powder but it is the most deadly poison in the world. Unless a boy or girl knows fully its terrible danger, they should never touch it or even breathe its fumes. One of your parents or the druggist should prepare the cyanide bottle for you and as long as you do not look into the bottle to watch the struggles of a dying bug or in any way get any of the contents of the bottle on your fingers, you are safe.
Take a wide-mouthed bottle made of clear glass and fit a cork or rubber stopper to it. Then wash the bottle thoroughly and dry it, finally polishing the inside with a piece of soft cloth or tissue paper. Place one ounce of cyanide of potassium into the bottle and pour in enough dry sawdust to cover the lumps of poison. Then wet some plaster of paris until it is the consistency of thick cream and quickly pour it over the sawdust, taking care that it does not run down the sides or splash against the bottle. Place the bottle on a level table and very soon the plaster of paris will set and harden into a solid cake.
Sufficient fumes from the cyanide will come up through the plaster to poison the air in the bottle and to kill any living thing that attempts to breathe it. As you capture your specimens of moths, bugs or butterflies afield you place them into the bottle, and as soon as they are dead, you remove them; fold them carefully in stiff paper and store them in a paper box or a carrying case until you get home. They should then be mounted on boards or cork sheets, labelled carefully with the name of the specimen, date and place of capture and any other facts that you may wish to keep.


Considerable skill is required to mount insects properly and in a life-like position. If they are out of shape you must “spread” them before they dry out. Spreading consists in holding them in the proper position by means of tiny bits of glass and pins until they are dry.
As moths are, as a rule, night-flying creatures the collector will either obtain them in a larval stage, or will adopt the method of “sugaring,” one of the most fascinating branches of nature study. A favorable locality is selected, a comparatively open space in preference to a dense growth, and several trees are baited or sugared to attract the moths when in search of food. The sugar or bait is made as follows: Take four pounds of dark brown sugar, one quart of molasses, a bottle of stale ale or beer, four ounces of Santa Cruz rum. Mix and heat gradually. After it is cooked for five minutes allow it to cool and place in Mason jars. The bait will be about the consistency of thick varnish.
Just before twilight the bait should be painted on a dozen or more trees with a strip about three inches wide and three feet long. You will need a bull’s-eye lantern or bicycle lamp and after dark, make the rounds of your bait and cautiously flash the light on the baited tree. If you see a moth feeding there, carefully bring the cyanide bottle up and drop him into it. Under no circumstances, clap the bottle over the specimen. If you do the neck of the bottle will become smeared with the bait and the moth would be daubed over and ruined. You will soon have all the specimens that you can care for at one time and will be ready to go home and take care of them.
The moths are among the most beautiful creatures in nature and a reasonably complete collection of the specimens in your neigborhood will be something to be proud of.
The plant and flower collector should combine his field work with a study of botany. Like most subjects in school books, botany may seem dry and uninteresting but when we learn it for some definite purpose such as knowing the wild flowers and calling them our friends, we must accept the few strange words and dry things in the school work as a little bitter that goes with a great deal of sweet.
A collection of dried plants is called an herbarium. It is customary to take the entire plant as a specimen including the roots. Separate specimens of buds, leaves, flowers and fruit taken at different seasons of the year will make the collection more complete. Specimens should be first pressed or flattened between sheets of blotting paper and then mounted on sheets of white paper either by glue or by strips of gummed paper.
After a flower is properly identified, these sheets should be carefully numbered and labelled and a record kept in a book so that we can readily find a specimen without unnecessarily handling the specimen sheets. The sheets should be kept in heavy envelopes of manila paper and placed in a box just the size to hold them. The standard or museum size of herbarium sheets is 11-1/2 x 16-1/2 inches. Specimens of seaweed or leaves can be kept in blank books.

FISHING

Proper tackle for all purposes—How to catch bait—The fly
fisherman—General fishing rules

Fishing is one sport of boyhood that we never outgrow our love for. Some of the most enthusiastic fishermen are gray-haired men. We often hear about the boy with the bent pin and the piece of thread who catches more fish than the expert fisherman with modern, up-to-date tackle, but I doubt if it is so. As a rule the better our tackle the more fish we shall catch. If the country boy catches the most fish, it is simply because he is better acquainted with the places where the fish hide or feed. He knows their habits better and the best kind of bait to use. A lover of fishing should take a personal interest in his equipment and should desire to have the best he can afford.
The chief requirement of a successful fisherman is patience. Next to that is a knowledge of the waters fished in and the habits of the fish and how to attract them. A man or a boy who will sit all day in the hot sun waiting for a bite is not always a good fisherman. He must use common sense as well as patience.
A game fish may be defined as one that will make a good fight for its life and that is caught by scientific methods of angling. Almost any fish will struggle to escape the hook, but generally by game fish we understand that in fresh water the salmon, bass, or trout family is referred to. Pickerel and pike are also game fish, but in some sections they are considered undesirable because they rarely rise to the fly, which is the most scientific method of fishing.
A fisherman who is a real sportsman always uses tackle as light as he can with safety and still have a chance of landing the fish. If the angler will take his time he can, with skill, tire out and land fish of almost any size. Tunas and tarpon weighing over a hundred pounds are caught with a line that is but little thicker than a grocer’s twine, and even sharks and jewfish weighing over five hundred pounds have been caught in the same way. Sometimes the fight will last all day, and then it is a question whether the fisherman or the fish will be exhausted first.

Fishing is the One Sport of Our Childhood That Holds Our Interest Through Life
In selecting our tackle, we must always keep in mind the kind of fish we expect to catch. For general, fresh-water use, except fly casting, an eight-foot rod weighing seven or eight ounces will fill most purposes. A fly rod should be a foot longer and at least two ounces lighter. The best rods are made of split bamboo, but cheap rods of this material are not worth having. The best cheap rods (i.e., costing five dollars or less) are either lancewood or steel. See that your rod has “standing guides” and not movable rings. Most of the wear comes on the tip, therefore it should if possible be agate lined. A soft metal tip will have a groove worn in it in a very short time which will cut the line. The poorest ferrules are nickel-plated. The best ones are either German silver or brass. To care for a rod properly, we must keep the windings varnished to prevent them from becoming unwound. Spar varnish is the best for this purpose but shellac will answer. In taking a rod apart, never twist it. Give a sharp pull, and if it refuses to budge, it can sometimes be loosened by slightly heating the ferrule with a candle. If a ferrule is kept clean inside, and if the rod is taken apart frequently, there is no reason why it should stick.
A multiplying reel holding sixty yards is large enough for most fishing. The raised pillar reels are the best, one of good quality costing about four dollars. A cheap reel soon goes to pieces.
Silk lines are better than linen because greater strength is obtained with the same thickness. Always dry a line every time it is used, or it will soon rot and be worthless. The back of a chair is excellent for this purpose. Never tie a knot in a line that you expect to use with rod and reel. The knot will always catch in one of the guides just at the time when you are landing your “biggest” fish.

Hooks come in a great variety of shapes and models but there are none better than the standard “Sproat.” It is the general favorite of fishermen everywhere, although of course the other leading models, Carlisle, Limerick, Pennell, Aberdeen, Sneck and a number of others all have their friends.
A great many fishermen make the mistake of using hooks that are too large. The hook sizes that are commonly used are numbered from 6/0, which is the largest, to No. 12, which is a tiny thing about right to catch minnows. Where we expect to catch fish a pound or two in weight, the No. 1 size is about right. Such a hook will catch much larger fish if they happen to come along. I have caught a twelve-pound lake trout on a No. 4 Sproat hook and the hook did not show that it had bent in the least.
Our tackle box should contain an assortment of sizes however. Snelled hooks are better than ringed hooks and those of blued steel better than black enamel. No matter how inexpensive the rest of the equipment is, be sure that your hooks are of good quality. Keep the points sharp. A tiny bit of oil stone, a file, or a piece of emery cloth are all good for this purpose. It takes a sharp point to penetrate the bony jaw of a fish. Always inspect your hook after you have caught it on a rock or snag.
Fishing is generally divided into four classes: fly casting, bait casting, trolling, and still fishing. The average boy is a still fisherman, which means not only that he must keep still, but that his bait remains in one place instead of being trolled or cast about. The usual strings of fish that boys catch, such as perch, sunfish, bullheads, catfish, and whitefish, are called pan fish. This is not entirely a correct name as I have seen some catfish that it would take a pretty big pan to hold. One caught in the Mississippi River weighed over a hundred pounds.
Fly casting is the most scientific method of fishing and gives the greatest pleasure to the fisherman after he has once become an expert. No matter what method we follow in fishing, we must never try to catch fish by any method which the laws may prohibit, such as spearing, set lines, or nets. Each state has its own laws which the fisherman must learn and obey.
Worms are the best all around bait for fishing. They are as a rule easily obtained and may be kept for a long time. The boy’s method of placing them in a tin can with a mixture of mud will soon kill them, however, especially if the worms are exposed to the sun for a time. A half-buried soap box makes a very good place to keep a supply of worms which will be ready for use at any time without the necessity of digging them. Worms may be fed on the white of a hard-boiled egg, but if given plenty of room they will usually find enough food in the soil. By placing worms in sand they will soon scour and turn pink when they are far more attractive as bait. The large worms, or “night walkers,” can be caught at night with a lantern. These large worms are best obtained after a rain or on lawns that are sprinkled frequently, when they will be found moving about on top of the ground but always with one end in the hole from which they have emerged and into which they can dart if they are disturbed.
For big fish, the best bait is minnows. In trolling with them it will make but little difference whether dead or alive, but for still fishing the minnows must not only be alive, but, to attract the fish, lively as well. The regulation minnow bucket consists of one pail fitted inside of another, the inner one being made of wire mesh to permit the free circulation of the water. This enables us to change the water frequently without handling the fish. When we reach a place where fresh water is obtainable, we simply remove the inner pail, pour out the stale water from the other pail, and fill it as quickly as possible. To keep bait alive in warm weather we must change the water frequently. Another method where fresh water is not available, as on a long drive, is to aerate it by pouring from one pail to another. It is an excellent plan to place a piece of ice on top of the minnow pail. With this arrangement, it will not be necessary to give them fresh water for a long time.

The simplest way to catch minnows is with a drop net. Take an iron ring or hoop such as children use and sew to it a bag of cotton mosquito netting, half as deep as the diameter of the ring. Sew a weight in the bottom of the net to make it sink readily and fasten it to a pole. When we reach the place which the minnows frequent, such as the cove of a lake, we must proceed very cautiously, lowering the net into the water and then baiting it with bits of bread or meat, a very little at a time, until we see a school of bait darting here and there over the net. We must then give a quick lift without any hesitation and try to catch as many as possible from escaping over the sides. The minnow bucket should be close at hand to transfer them to and care must be used not to injure them or allow them to scale themselves in their efforts to escape. The common method of capturing minnows is to use a sweep net, but it takes several people to handle one properly and for our own use the drop net method will probably supply us with all the bait that we need.
Fish are very fickle in their tastes. What will be good bait one day will absolutely fail the next and sometimes even in an hour this same thing will take place. Why this is so no one has been able to explain satisfactorily, but that it is a fact no fisherman will deny. We should therefore have as great a variety of bait in our equipment as possible. Worms, crawfish, minnows, frogs, grasshoppers, grubs and helgramites are all good at times in fresh water, as well as various kinds of artificial baits, spoons, spinners, and rubber lures.

Sometimes fish will take very unusual baits. Black bass have been caught on young bats. The famous old trout in the Beaverkill River in New York State, which had refused all the ordinary baits and flies that were offered him for years and that on bright days could be seen in a pool lying deep down in the water, finally fell a victim to a young mouse that was tied to the hook with pink silk.
Fly fishing is the most expert and scientific method of angling. It is the poetry of fishing. The fly fisherman usually wades in the brook or stream where he is fishing, although it is sometimes possible to cast a fly from the bank or a boat. It is useless to go fly fishing while there is snow water in the brooks but just as soon as the first warm days of spring come, then fishing is at its best.
The whole idea of casting a fly is to drop it in the most likely-looking places and to strike the fish just as soon as he seizes the hook. To do this we must always have the line under perfect control, therefore do not attempt to cast a line too great a distance. If we do not fix the hook into the fish’s mouth at the instant that he seizes the fly, he will very soon find that what he thought was a nice fat bug or juicy caterpillar is nothing but a bit of wool and some feathers with a sting in its tail, and he will spit it out before we can recover our slack line.
It is a common mistake to use flies that are too large. Ordinary trout flies are the proper size for bass and the smallest size trout flies are plenty large enough for trout. There are hundreds of kinds of flies of various combinations of colors and no one can say which is the best. This question has been argued by fishermen ever since the days of Izaak Walton.
The universal rule of trout and bass fishermen who use a fly is to select small dark flies for bright days or when the water is very clear or low and the more brightly colored ones when the day is dark or the water dark or turbid. The fly book should contain a varied assortment to meet these conditions.
The best lines for fly fishing are made of braided enamelled silk. Some fly lines are tapered but this is not necessary and is a needless expense. Twisted lines are much cheaper but very unsatisfactory.
Fly fishing is not only the most scientific and sportsmanlike method of fishing but it is also the most difficult to acquire skill in. It is of course possible to catch trout and salmon on other bait than flies. In fact, there is really no better bait for brook trout than common fish worms that have been scoured in sand. The use of a fly, however, is more satisfactory where the pleasure derived in fishing is more important than the size of the string.

In learning to cast a fly, you can practice at home, either in an open space or wherever there is room to work the line. It is not necessary to practice with the actual hooks or flies on the line. Simply tie a knot in it. Hold the rod lightly but firmly in the right hand. Point your thumb along the line of the rod and start by pulling out a little line from the reel with the left hand. With a steady sweep, cast the end of the line toward some near-by object and with each cast pull out a little more line until you reach a point when you are handling all the line you can take care of without effort or without too much of a sweep on the back cast. You must not allow the line to become entangled in trees or other obstacles. The wrist does most of the work in casting. The elbow should be close to the side. If you find that the line snaps like a whip on the back cast, it is because you start the forward cast before the line straightens out behind.
When you can handle twenty-five or thirty feet accurately, you can safely get ready to go fishing. The most successful fly fishermen use a short line, but they use it with the utmost accuracy and can make the flies land within a foot of the place they are aiming at almost every time. When a trout strikes your fly, you must snub him quickly or he will surely get away. If the flies you are using do not cause the fish to rise, and if you are certain that it is not due to your lack of skill, it will be well to change to some other combination of colors; but give your first selection a fair trial.
Bait casting is much easier than fly casting as the weight of the bait will help to carry out the line. It is the common method of fishing with minnows, frogs, small spoons and spinners, and other artificial lures. Some fishermen practice the method of allowing the line to run from the reel. The principal point in this way of fishing is to stop the reel by using the thumb as a brake at the instant that the bait strikes the water. This prevents the reel from spinning and causing the line to overrun. Neglect of this precaution will cause a very annoying tangle that is sometimes call a “backlash” but more often characterized by much harsher names by the impatient fisherman who has the misfortune to experience it.
In live bait casting, start with the line reeled to within fifteen inches of the end of the rod, holding the thumb on the reel spool. With a rather strong overhead sweep, bring the rod forward. At the proper instant, which is just as the point of the rod goes over your head, release the pressure of your thumb and the bait will go forward as the line runs out rapidly. When the bait lands, reel in slowly and with various motions try to give to the bait as life-like an appearance as possible. If you have a strike, allow the fish sufficient time to obtain a secure hold of the bait and by a sudden jerk fix the hook in his mouth.
Bait casting is as a rule a very effective method of catching fish, especially in shallow lakes and where fly fishing is not practiced. In deep water, trolling or still fishing are usually the best methods of catching fish and often the only methods that will be successful. Trolling consists simply in rowing or paddling slowly with the bait or spoon trailing behind. It is not a scientific way of fishing and requires but little skill. When the fish strikes, it usually hooks itself and all that remains is to reel it into the boat and land it. The conditions on large lakes often make it necessary to follow one of these methods of trolling or still fishing, especially during the warm weather when the big fish have left the spawning grounds and are in deep water. There are trolling devices called spinners that have several gangs of hooks, sometimes as many as fifteen. No real fisherman would use such a murderous arrangement which gives the fish practically no chance at all and in many states their use is properly prohibited by law. A single hook, or at most a single gang of three hooks, is all that any one should ever use.

Every boy knows what still fishing is. It is the common method of baiting our hook, casting it from the shore or from a boat and waiting for a bite. In still fishing it is customary to use a light sinker to keep the bait near the bottom and a float or “cork” which serves the double purpose of keeping the bait away from snags, stones, or weeds on the bottom and also of showing us when we have a bite. The more expert still fishermen never use a float, as they prefer to tell by the pull on the line when a fish has taken the bait.
A fishing boat should be thoroughly seaworthy and also have plenty of room. Flat-bottom boats make the best type for fishing, provided that we do not have to row them far or if the place where we use them is not subject to sudden squalls or rough water. The middle seat should contain both a fish well and a minnow box with a dividing partition and with two hinged lids fitted into the seat. Such a boat can be built by an ordinary carpenter and should not cost over ten or twelve dollars. It should be painted every year to keep it in good condition. Use clear white pine or cedar for the sides. The bottom boards should not be fitted tightly together but left with cracks fully a half-inch wide to allow for the swelling of the wood when the boat is launched. The best oarlocks are fastened to the oars and fit in the sockets with a long pin. This arrangement permits one to fish alone, and if trolling to drop the oars quickly and take up the rod without danger of losing them.

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A landing net should be a part of every fishing outfit. More fish are lost just as they are about to be lifted from the water than at any other time. A gaff is used for this same purpose with fish too large to go into a landing net. A gaff is a large hook without a barb fastened into a short pole. If you have no net or gaff and have succeeded in bringing a large fish up alongside the boat, try to reach under him and get a firm grip in his gills before you lift him on board. If it is a pickerel, look out for his needle-like teeth.
The best time to fish is either in the early morning or just before sundown. During the heated part of the day most game fish stop feeding and seek the cool, deep places in the lake or river.
In many states, fishing is prohibited by law until after the fish are through the spawning season.
In all kinds of fishing, the rule is to keep as quiet as possible. Talking does not make so much difference, but any sudden noises in the water or on the bottom of the boat are especially likely to frighten the fish.
Never fish in your own shadow or that of your boat. Try to have the sun in front of you or at your side.
Never be in a hurry to land a big fish. Remember that some of the so-called “big game fish” of the ocean will take all day to land. You must use skill to tire your fish out or by keeping his gills open to drown him. The rod and line are not intended as a lever to force the fish to the landing net but merely as a guide to lead him about and by his struggles to force him to become exhausted. A very interesting experiment has demonstrated that a skillful fisherman can with a fly rod and light line in a very short time tire out a strong swimmer to which the line has been attached and force him to give up the struggle and come to the side of a boat.
Methods of fishing differ so much in different localities that aside from the ordinary equipment of rods, reels, lines, leaders, and hooks, the fisherman going to a new locality had better first ascertain what the general methods of fishing are, or else, if possible, secure his equipment after he reaches his fishing grounds.

THE USE OF FIRE-ARMS

Importance of early training—Why a gun is better than a rifle—How to
become a good shot

Whether a boy of fifteen should have a gun or a rifle is a question that parents will have to settle for themselves. There is no question but that a careful boy who has been taught by some older person how to handle a gun is more to be trusted than a man who has never learned the proper use of fire-arms and who takes up the sport of hunting after he is grown up. Most of the shooting accidents are caused by inexperienced men who have never been accustomed to guns in their younger days. Once or twice I have just missed being shot by friends who had never been hunting before, and who became so excited when they unexpectedly kicked up a rabbit or walked into a flock of quail that they fired the gun without knowing whether any of their friends were in range or not. When a boy is allowed to have a gun it should be a real one. Air rifles and small caliber guns are all the more dangerous, because they are often looked upon as toys.
In handling a gun, always treat it as though it were loaded, no matter if you know it is empty. By this means it will soon become second nature to you never to point the gun at any one even carelessly or in fun. A guide once said to me, “A gun is a dangerous critter without lock, stock, or barrel, and if a feller ever points one at me I think he means business.”

A gun can never be trusted. Accidents happen so quickly that it is over before we know it and the terrible damage is done. Sometimes the trigger will catch on a coat button or a twig, and, bang! an unexpected discharge takes place and if you were careless just for an instant, it may cost some one his life. Especial care must be taken in loading and unloading a gun. It is at this time that a gun is most likely to go off unexpectedly.
The best way to learn how to handle a gun is to watch the methods of an old hand. Never fire a gun when you are standing behind another person. You may know that you are not aiming at him, but the concussion of the air near the end of the barrel is terrific, and your friend may have a split ear drum as a result.
A shot-gun is better for a boy than a rifle, for the reason that most real shooting except for big game is done with a shot-gun, and besides, it takes a lot of practice to shoot well with it. A shot-gun is not a weapon for play but a real tool. In almost every section of the country there is some small game to be hunted and there is usually also an opportunity to practice at clay pigeons.
No one would think of hunting quail, ducks, or rabbits with a rifle, and even if you were an excellent rifle shot at a still mark you might not be able to hit moving game at all. A shot-gun is less dangerous for the reason that its range is limited to a little over a hundred yards, while a rifle may carry a mile. A cheap shot-gun is far more dangerous than a cheap rifle. Until it is possible to buy a good one it is better to have none at all. A good American-made gun can be bought for about twenty-five dollars. A gun suitable for its owner should fit just as his clothing fits him. When a gun is quickly brought to the shoulder in firing position, there is no time in actual hunting to shift it around. When you buy a gun, remember that your canvas or corduroy hunting coat makes more of a bulge at the shoulder than an ordinary suit and accordingly see that the stock is the proper length. The “drop” of a gun is the number of inches that the stock falls below the line of the barrel. If the stock is bent too much you will shoot under your game. If it is too straight the tendency will be to shoot over game. The average stock is made to fit most people and will probably answer most purposes unless you can afford to have a stock made especially. The principal thing is to do all your practicing with your own gun until it becomes second nature to bring it up quickly and have the eye find the barrel instantly. A shot-gun is not aimed in the same way as a rifle. The method of good shots is rather to keep their eye on the game and when they “feel” that the gun is pointed right to fire. A skillful shot can tell whether he is shooting too high or too low just as he pulls the trigger. The brain, head, and eyes and trigger-finger must all work in harmony or you will never be a good shot. Never flinch as you shoot. This is a very common fault of beginners and it is fatal to becoming a marksman.
The first lesson in handling a gun is to understand perfectly how it works. If it is a hammerless gun, remember that it is always cocked. When you open the barrels you cock the gun automatically. For this reason there is some kind of a safety device provided, which should always be left at “safe” except at the actual instant of firing. It is just as easy to learn to push the safety off when you fire as it is to learn to pull the trigger, if one starts right.
Never carry your gun with your finger on the trigger. Wait until you put the gun up as you are ready to shoot. Don’t forget the safety. A great many shots are missed because the hunter forgets whether he has left it on or off and in his anxiety to hit the game will tug and pull on the trigger until, just as the game disappears out of range, he will remember that he did not release it. This shows the importance of acquiring the proper habit at first.
It is harder to correct bad habits in handling a gun than to teach the beginner the proper way at first. On your first lesson in the field, walk on the left side of your teacher so that your gun will be pointing away from him. If you come across any game, try to take your time before you fire. Nearly every one shoots too quickly. As most shot-gun shooting is what is called snap shooting, there isn’t much time at best, but a good shot will be sure that he has covered his game before he fires, while a beginner will trust to luck. This will be the hardest fault to correct. Consequently a beginner should if possible hunt alone for a while, as the presence of another gun alongside of him makes him too anxious to get in the first shot, and gets him into bad habits.
If your teacher also has a gun, he must assure you that he does not intend to shoot and then you will try harder to get the game and run less chance of missing. Always unload a gun before going into a house, under or over a fence, or in or out of a boat or carriage. If you leave your gun, even for a minute, unload it. Never rest a loaded gun against a tree or building. Never pull a gun loaded or empty toward you by the muzzle. In unloading always point it toward the ground. A jar will sometimes discharge a gun and very often a discharge will take place when closing the breech on a tight shell.
Always be ready for game. In hunting, we never can tell at what instant it will rise up in front of us. “Be ready” does not mean having the muscles and nerves constantly on a tension. It is simply to carry your gun in such a position that you can quickly bring it to the shoulder at any time. It is a good plan to practice aiming at various objects as you go along until you gradually overcome your awkwardness.
It is difficult to say what makes a good shot with a gun. There is no question but that practice will make any one a better shot than he would be without it, but some people are better shots with very little practice than others with a great deal. One very important thing is to do your practicing under conditions similar to the actual hunting. If the cover is thick where you hunt, a swamp or brush lot for example, you will not derive much benefit from practicing entirely in the open. A pigeon trap is an inexpensive way to learn to shoot. Some experienced hunters will say that practice at clay pigeons does not help in the field, but at the same time a good brush shot is almost always a good trap shot and if you can become skillful enough to break an average of eighteen to twenty clay pigeons out of twenty-five at sixteen yards rise, you may be sure that you will get your share of game under actual hunting conditions.
The most difficult part of bird hunting is to learn to give the game a start. The average shot-gun will kill quail at sixty yards and duck at forty. The farther the game is away from us, provided it is within range, the more the shot will spread. I once saw a half-dozen hunters fire at a covey of quail that rose in an open field before they had gone thirty yards and every hunter scored a clean miss. Any one of these men could bring down his bird under the same conditions nine times out of ten if he had taken his time. On this occasion when their guns were empty another hunter who had withheld his fire said, “Are you all done, boys?” and shot a bird with each barrel at a measured fifty-eight yards. To kill a bird that another man has shot at is called “wiping his eye,” and it is the chief joy of an old hunter to do this with a beginner. If you do not want to let the old hunter wipe your eye, take your time.
Learn to shoot with your head well up and with both eyes open. When the game rises, keep your eye on it and at the instant that you see it on the end of your gun barrel, fire. The greatest joy of hunting is to see the game appear to tumble off the end of your gun barrel when it is hit. If there is a doubt as to whose bird it is, and this happens constantly as two people often shoot at the same time at the same bird, do not rush in and claim it. Remember you are a gentleman, but if you are sure that you hit it, at least stand for your rights.
So much of the pleasure of hunting depends on our companions that we must be considerate of the feelings of others as well as our own. Always hunt if possible with experienced hunters. You will not only have more fun, but you will run much less risk. In rabbit hunting, one is especially at the mercy of the beginner who fires wildly without any thought as to whose life he may be endangering, so long as he gets the rabbit. If you hunt with some one who owns the dogs, be very careful not to interfere with them by giving commands. As a rule the owner of a well-trained dog prefers to handle him without any help, and, while he may not tell you, you may be sure that he will resent it if you try to make the dog do your bidding when his master is around.
The pattern of a gun, as it is called, is the number of shot it will put within a circle at a given distance. As a rule the factory test pattern will be found on a tag attached to the gun. If not, you can easily get the pattern yourself. The usual distance for targeting a new gun is thirty yards, and the standard circle is thirty inches. Make a circle on the barn door with a piece of chalk and string fifteen inches long. First drive a nail into the wood and fasten the string to it with the chalk on the loose end. Then describe and measure ninety feet from the target. Fire as nearly as you can at the center of the circle and count the shot that are inside the chalk mark. In order not to count the same shot twice mark them off with a pencil. Perhaps a surer way would be to fire at the door first and in the center of the load of shot drive the nail and describe a circle afterward. The chief advantage of studying the pattern of your gun is to know just how much it scatters and how far it may be depended upon to shoot and kill.
In a choke-bore gun, the end of the barrel is drawn in slightly and made smaller to keep the shot together. Guns that are used in duck and goose hunting are usually full choked as most of the shots are long ones, but for ordinary brush and field shooting a gun that has a full cylinder right barrel and a modified choke on the left will be the best for general purposes.
The best size is 12-bore or gauge. Ten gauge guns are entirely too heavy for general use and the smaller bores, such as sixteen or even twenty gauge, while they are very light and dainty, are not a typical all around gun for a boy who can only afford to have one size. The smaller bores, however, have become very popular in recent years and much may be said in their favor.
The standard length of barrels is either twenty-eight or thirty inches. The shorter length will probably be just as satisfactory and makes a much better proportion between the stock and barrels. You can easily test the amount of choke in a 12-gauge gun. A new ten-cent piece will just go inside the end of the barrel of a full cylinder gun and just fail to go into one that has been slightly choked.
While it is impossible to give any written directions for shooting that are as valuable as actual practice, the important thing for a beginner is to get his form right at first, just as in golf or horseback riding, and then to make up his mind that every shot has got to count.
Rifle shooting is entirely different from shot-gun shooting and skill in one branch of the sport of marksmanship does not mean much in the other. A boy may be an excellent rifle shot at a stationary target and still not be able to hit “a flock of barns,” as the country boys say, with a shot-gun. Skill with a rifle is chiefly of value to those who are interested in military affairs and more rarely to those who are fortunate enough to have an opportunity for hunting big game. In settled communities there is a strong feeling against allowing boys to have rifles. Practically the only game that can be hunted will be our little friends, the song birds, and no self-respecting boy will shoot them. A small calibre rifle such as a 22-calibre Flobert will afford considerable pastime at target practice and is also excellent to hunt snakes and frogs along some brook or creek, but generally a boy with a rifle is a public nuisance, and as a rule is liable to arrest in possessing it. If we fix up a rifle range where there are no dangers of damage from spent bullets or badly aimed shots it is well enough to practice with a small rifle.
A real sporting rifle, such as is used for big game, is a very dangerous fire-arm and cannot be used with safety anywhere but in an absolute wilderness or on a target range. Such guns will kill at a mile and go through a tree a foot or two in diameter; to use such a weapon in even a sparsely settled section is very dangerous indeed. If a boy has any chance of going hunting for deer or moose, he will surely need practice and for this purpose a range will have to be selected where there is absolutely no danger to any one within a mile or two. A good practice range is across a lake or river with a bank of earth or clay to stop the bullets. Big game hunting is done so frequently from canoes that it is well to get practice from a boat, both moving and stationary. To shoot successfully from a sitting position in a canoe is a very difficult feat. Just as with a shot-gun the universal tendency is to shoot too quickly, with a rifle it is to shoot too high. The reason is that we hold our head so high up in looking at our game that we fail to see the rear sight at all. Be sure your head is low enough to see both sights.
Always hold your breath while you are taking aim. Learn to shoot from all sorts of positions, lying, sitting, kneeling, and standing. If the shot is a long one, be sure that your rear sight is properly elevated for the distance. Most of the shots at big game are stationary shots and within a hundred yards; consequently accuracy counts for more than quickness.
With a magazine or repeating rifle be sure that you have emptied your magazine before you leave the gun. With a shot-gun there is a possibility that the “person who didn’t know it was loaded” may not kill his victim outright. With a sporting rifle it is practically sure death.
The general rules of care apply to both rifles and shot-guns. Always clean the gun after you have taken it into the field. This is necessary whether you have fired the gun or not, as a gun barrel will always collect a certain amount of dampness. It is an excellent practice to keep a gun covered with oil or vaseline except when it is in use. It not only prevents rust, but the grease also discourages visitors and friends from handling the gun, snapping the trigger, or otherwise damaging it.
In this chapter, I have not said anything about revolvers or pistols, because I do not believe that any sensible boy will care to own one. A revolver is a constant source of danger owing to its short barrel, and as it has no practical value except as a weapon of defence, and as there is a severe penalty for carrying a concealed weapon, I should not care to recommend any boy to own a revolver.
The final question whether we may have a gun and what kind it should be, will depend very largely on the place we live. Any kind of a gun is very much out of place in cities or towns. The boy who does not really have an opportunity to use a gun should be too sensible to ask for one, for surely if we own it we shall constantly want to use it even at some risk. It will be far better to ask for something we can use and leave the gun question until the time when we have a real opportunity.
Finally we must remember that the one who has the gun in his possession is rarely the one that is accidentally shot. We should therefore avoid companions who do own guns and who are careless with them. No amount of care on our part will prevent some careless boy friend from risking our lives. The safer way is to stay home.

The wilderness traveler

On the other hand, some country boys who have kept their ears and eyes open will know more about the wild life of the woods than people who attempt to write books about it; myself, for example. I have a boy friend up in Maine who can fell a tree as big around as his body in ten minutes, and furthermore he can drop it in any direction that he wants to without leaving it hanging up in the branches of some other tree or dropping it in a soft place where the logging team cannot possibly haul it out without miring the horses. The stump will be almost as clean and flat as a saw-cut. This boy can also build a log cabin, chink up the cracks with clay and moss and furnish it with benches and tables that he has made, with no other tools than an axe and a jackknife. He can make a rope out of a grape-vine or patch a hole in his birch bark canoe with a piece of bark and a little spruce gum. He can take you out in the woods and go for miles with never a thought of getting lost, tell you the names of the different birds and their calls, what berries are good to eat, where the partridge nests or the moose feeds, and so on. If you could go around with him for a month, you would learn more real woodcraft than books could tell you in a lifetime. And this boy cannot even read or write and probably never heard the word “woodcraft.” His school has been the school of hard knocks. He knows these things as a matter of course just as you know your way home from school. His father is a woodchopper and has taught him to take care of himself.
If you desire to become a good woodsman, the first and most important thing is to learn to use an axe. Patent folding hatchets are well enough in their way, but for real woodchopping an axe is the only thing. One of four pounds is about the right weight for a beginner. As it comes from the store, the edge will be far too thick and clumsy to do good work. First have it carefully ground by an expert and watch how he does it.
If I were a country boy I should be more proud of skillful axemanship than to be pitcher on the village nine. With a good axe, a good rifle, and a good knife, a man can take care of himself in the woods for days, and the axe is more important even than the rifle.

The easiest way to learn to be an axeman is to make the acquaintance of some woodchopper in your neigborhood. But let me warn you. Never ask him to lend you his axe. You would not be friends very long if you did. You must have one of your own, and let it be like your watch or your toothbrush, your own personal property.

A cheap axe is poor economy. The brightest paint and the gaudiest labels do not always mean the best steel. Your friend the woodchopper will tell you what kind to buy in your neigborhood. The handle should be straight-grained hickory and before buying it you will run your eye along it to see that the helve is not warped or twisted and that there are no knots or bad places in it. The hang of an axe is the way the handle or helve is fitted to the head. An expert woodchopper is rarely satisfied with the heft of an axe as it comes from the store. He prefers to hang his own. In fact, most woodchoppers prefer to make their own axe handles.

You will need a stone to keep a keen edge on the axe. No one can do good work with a dull blade, and an edge that has been nicked by chopping into the ground or hitting a stone is absolutely inexcusable.
To chop a tree, first be sure that the owner is willing to have it chopped. Then decide in which direction you wish it to fall. This will be determined by the kind of ground, closeness of other trees, and the presence of brush or undergrowth. When a tree has fallen the woodchopper’s work has only begun. He must chop off the branches, cut and split the main trunk, and either make sawlogs or cordwood lengths. Hence the importance of obtaining a good lie for the tree.

Before beginning to chop the tree, cut away all the brush, vines, and undergrowth around its butt as far as you will swing the axe. This is very important as many of the accidents with an axe result from neglect of this precaution. As we swing the axe it may catch on a bush or branch over our head, which causes a glancing blow and a possible accident. Be careful not to dull the axe in cutting brush. You can often do more damage to its edge with undergrowth no thicker than one’s finger than in chopping a tree a foot through. If the brush is very light, it will often be better to use your jack-knife.

In cutting a tree, first make two nicks or notches in the bark on the side to which you wish it to fall and as far apart as half the diameter of the tree. Then begin to swing the axe slowly and without trying to bury its head at every blow and prying it loose again, but with regular strokes first across the grain at the bottom and then in a slanting direction at the top. The size of the chips you make will be a measure of your degree of skill. Hold the handle rather loosely and keep your eye on the place you wish to hit and not on the axe. Do not work around the tree or girdle it but keep right at the notch you are making until it is half way through the tree. Do not shift your feet at every blow or rise up on your toes. This would tire even an old woodchopper in a short time. See that you do not set yourself too fast a pace at first. A beginner always starts with too small a notch. See to it that yours is wide enough in the start.
 
When you have cut about half way through, go to the other side of the tree and start another notch a little higher than the first one. A skilled man can chop either right-or left-handed but this is very difficult for a beginner. If you are naturally right-handed, the quickest way to learn left-handed wood chopping is to study your usual position and note where you naturally place your feet and hands. Then reverse all this and keep at it from the left-handed position until it becomes second nature to you and you can chop equally well from either position. This you may learn in a week or you may never learn it. It is a lot easier to write about than it is to do.

When the tree begins to creak and show signs of toppling over, give it a few sharp blows and as it falls jump sideways. Never jump or run backward. This is one way that men get killed in the woods. A falling tree will often kick backward like a shot. It will rarely go far to either side. Of course a falling tree is a source of danger anyway, so you must always be on your guard.

If you wish to cut the fallen tree into logs, for a cabin, for instance, you will often have to jump on top of it and cut between your feet. This requires skill and for that reason I place a knowledge of axemanship ahead of anything else in woodcraft except cooking. With a crosscut saw, we can make better looking logs and with less work.

Next to knowing how to chop a tree is knowing what kind of a tree to chop. Different varieties possess entirely different qualities. The amateur woodchopper will note a great difference between chopping a second growth chestnut and a tough old apple tree. We must learn that some trees, like oak, sugar maple, dogwood, ash, cherry, walnut, beech, and elm are very hard and that most of the evergreens are soft, such as spruce, pine, arbor vitae, as well as the poplars and birches. It is easy to remember that lignum vitae is one of the hardest woods and arbor vitae one of the softest. Some woods, like cedar, chestnut, white birch, ash, and white oak, are easy to split, and wild cherry, sugar maple, hemlock, and sycamore are all but unsplitable. We decide the kind of a tree to cut by the use to which it is to be put. For the bottom course of a log cabin, we place logs like cedar, chestnut, or white oak because we know that they do not rot quickly in contact with the ground. We always try to get straight logs because we know that it is all but impossible to build a log house of twisted or crooked ones.
It is a very common custom for beginners to make camp furniture, posts, and fences of white birch. This is due to the fact that the wood is easily worked and gives us very pretty effects. Birch however is not at all durable and if we expect to use our camp for more than one season we must expect to replace the birch every year or two. Rustic furniture made of cedar will last for years and is far superior to birch.
Getting lost in the woods may be a very serious thing. If you are a city boy used to signboards, street corners, and familiar buildings you may laugh at the country boy who is afraid to go to a big city because he may get lost, but he knows what being lost means at home and he fails to realize when he is in a city how easy it is to ask the nearest policeman or passer-by the way home. Most city boys will be lost in the woods within five minutes after they leave their camp or tent. If you have no confidence in yourself and if you are in a wilderness like the North woods, do not venture very far from home alone until you are more expert.

It is difficult to say when we are really lost in the woods. As long as we think we know the way home we are not lost even if we may be absolutely wrong in our opinion of the proper direction. In such a case we may soon find our mistake and get on the right track again. When we are really lost is when suddenly a haunting fear comes over us that we do not know the way home. Then we lose our heads as well as our way and often become like crazy people.

A sense of direction is a gift or instinct. It is the thing that enables a carrier pigeon that has been taken, shut up in a basket say from New York to Chicago, to make a few circles in the air when liberated and start out for home, and by this sense to fly a thousand miles without a single familiar landmark to guide him and finally land at his home loft tired and hungry.

No human being ever had this power to the same extent as a pigeon, but some people seem to keep a sense of direction and a knowledge of the points of compass in a strange place without really making an effort to do it. One thing is sure. If we are traveling in a strange country we must always keep our eyes and ears open if we expect to find our way alone. We must never trust too implicitly in any “sense of direction.”

Forest travelers are always on the lookout for peculiar landmarks that they will recognize if they see them again. Oddly shaped trees, rocks, or stumps, the direction of watercourses and trails, the position of the sun, all these things will help us to find our way out of the woods when a less observing traveler who simply tries to remember the direction he has traveled may become terrified.

Rules which tell people what to do when they are lost are rarely of much use, because the act of losing our way brings with it such a confusion of mind that it would be like printing directions for terror stricken people who are drowning.

Suppose, for example, a boy goes camping for a week or two in the Adirondacks or Maine woods. If he expects to go about alone, his first step should be to become familiar with the general lay of the land, the direction of cities, towns, settlements, mountain ranges, lakes, and rivers in the section where he is going, and especially with the location of other camps, railroads, lumber camps, and so on in his immediate neigborhood, say within a five-mile radius. It is an excellent plan to take along a sectional map which can usually be bought of the state geologist. One can by asking questions also learn many things from the natives.

Such a boy may start out from his camp, which is on the shore of a lake, for example, on an afternoon’s fishing or hunting trip. If he is careful he will always consult his compass to keep in mind the general direction in which he travels. He will also tell his friends at camp where he expects to go. If he has no compass, he at least knows that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and he can easily remember whether he has traveled toward the setting sun or away from it. Rules for telling the points of compass by the thickness of the bark or moss on trees are well enough for story books. They are not of much value to a man lost in the woods.

Suddenly, say at four o’clock, this boy decides to “turn around” and go back to camp. And then the awful feeling comes to him that he doesn’t know which way to turn. The woods take on a strange and unfamiliar look. He is lost. The harder he tries to decide which way the camp lies, the worse his confusion becomes. If he would only collect his thoughts and like the Indian say “Ugh! Indian not lost, Indian here. Wigwam lost,” he probably would soon get his bearings. It is one thing to lose your way and another to lose your head.

When you are lost, you are confused, and the only rule to remember is to sit down on the nearest rock or stump and wait until you get over being “rattled.” Then ask yourself, “How far have I gone since I was not sure of my way?” and also, “How far am I from camp?” If you have been out three hours and have walked pretty steadily, you may have gone five miles. Unless you have traveled in a straight line and at a rapid pace, the chances are that you are not more than half that distance. But even two or three miles in strange woods is a long distance. You may at least be sure that you must not expect to find camp by rushing about here and there for ten minutes.
We have all heard how lost people will travel in circles and keep passing the same place time after time without knowing it. This is true and many explanations have been attempted. One man says that we naturally take longer steps with our right leg because it is the stronger; another thinks that our heart has something to do with it, and so on. Why we do this no one really knows, but it seems to be a fact. Therefore, before a lost person starts to hunt for camp, he should blaze a tree that he can see from any direction. Blazing simply means cutting the bark and stripping it on all four sides. If you have no hatchet a knife will do, but be sure to make a blaze that will show at some distance, not only for your own benefit but to guide a searching party that may come out to look for you. You can mark an arrow to point the direction that you are going, or if you have pencil and notebook even leave a note for your friends telling them your predicament. This may all seem unnecessary at the time but if you are really lost, nothing is unnecessary that will help you to find yourself.
As you go along give an occasional whack at a tree with your hatchet to mark the bark or bend over the twigs and underbrush in the direction of your course. The thicker the undergrowth the more blaze marks you must make. Haste is not so important as caution. You may go a number of miles and at the end be deeper in the woods than ever, but your friends who are looking for you, if they can run across one of your blazes, will soon find you.

When you are certain that you will not be able to find your way out before dark, there is not much use of going any farther. The thing to do then is to stop and prepare for passing the night in the woods while it is still daylight. Go up on the highest point of ground, build a leanto and make your camp-fire. If you have no matches, you can sometimes start a fire by striking your knife blade with a piece of flint or quartz, a hard white stone that is common nearly everywhere. The sparks should fall in some dry tinder or punk and the little fire coaxed along until you get a blaze. There are many kinds of tinder used in the woods, dried puff balls, “dotey” or rotten wood that is not damp, charred cotton cloth, dry moss, and so on. In the pitch pine country, the best kindlings after we have caught a tiny blaze are splinters taken from the heart of a decayed pine log. They are full of resin and will burn like fireworks. The Southerners call it “light-wood.”
Dry birch bark also makes excellent kindlings. A universal signal of distress in the woods that is almost like the flag upside down on shipboard is to build two smoky fires a hundred yards or more apart. One fire means a camp, two fires means trouble.

Another signal is two gunshots fired quickly, a pause to count ten and then a third. Always listen after you have given this signal to see if it is answered. Give your friends time enough to get the gun loaded at camp. Always have a signal code arranged and understood by your party before you attempt to go it alone. You may never need it but if you do you will need it badly.

Sometimes we can get our bearings by climbing a tree. Another aid to determine our direction is this: Usually all the brooks and water courses near a large lake or river flow into it. If you are sure that you haven’t crossed a ridge or divide, the surest way back home if camp is on a lake is to follow down the first brook or spring you come across. It will probably bring you up at the lake, sooner or later.

On a clear night you can tell the points of compass from the stars. Whether a boy or girl is a camper or not, they surely ought to know how to do this. Have some one point out to you the constellation called the “dipper.” It is very conspicuous and when you have once learned to know it you will always recognize it as an old friend. The value of the dipper is this: The two stars that form the lower corners of its imaginary bowl are sometimes called the “north star pointers.” The north star or Polaris, because of its position with reference to the earth, never seems to move. If you draw an imaginary line through the two pointers up into the heavens, the first bright star you come to, which is just a little to the right of this line, is the north star. It is not very bright or conspicuous like Venus or Mars but it has pointed the north to sailors over the uncharted seas for hundreds of years. By all means make the acquaintance of Polaris.