260 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



of a city street, you are offered the ideal summer life of the country; 

 where the pleasures though varied, are the simple, natural interests of 

 the fields and woods, and the occupations those which lead to a know- 

 ledge of the outdoor world. The Camp season extends from July 5th 

 to August 9th. 



Arabella H. Tucker. 

 Teacher of Botany, Normal School, Worcester, Mass. 



To spend a month at Natural History Camp is to have an outing in 

 a quiet spot of great natural beauty, where the complex harness of civili- 

 zation may be loosened or cast aside and where life may return for a 

 little, to simpler, freer conditions. To sleep in a tent, to bathe in the 

 lake, to eat under the trees, — these experiences bring us nearer to the 

 life of primitive man from which the city dweller is too widely separated. 

 And in this favored spot, land and water combine to furnish opportunity 

 for a great variety of wholesome outdoor recreations. Such a month 

 could hardly fail to be of benefit, physically and spiritually, to anybody 

 whose daily occupation keeps him indoors. 



But a month at the Camp as conducted last summer by the Natural 

 History Society means all this and much more. It means a gathering 

 of people with a common interest in the study of Nature. In addition 

 to the beauty of its situation the Camp offers such manifold advantages 

 for this study that even a solitary sojourn there could not fail to be both 

 profitable and enjoyable. But when, to improve these facilities, there 

 come together a group of persons all interested in the same subject 

 there result not only the stimulus of companionship in study but many 

 opportunities for social enjoyment. Such a company would get much 

 profit from a single day together out-of-doors, but with a single field 

 day repeated thirty times, there should be not only thirty times the 

 amount of enjoyment and profit but the cumulative result of observations 

 and perhaps experiments, continued from day to day, that cannot be so 

 easily reckoned. 



This is the ideal that the Society has striven to realize. The ideal 

 and the real are often so widely different in this world that the question 

 may naturally be asked how near they approached in last summer's 

 Camp. As in every new undertaking there was an experimental char- 

 acter to the management, but the experience of the first season will no 

 doubt serve as a basis for plans for the next. I do not see, however, 

 how the broad lines on which this undertaking was formulated can be 

 changed or improved. 



Speaking for myself only, I can say that the month was for me much 

 more than a pleasant vacation outing. I found it a distinct inspiration 



