tilled. And here I wish to call attention to a ramp 

 tool not mentioned in hooks on camping. If you ex- 

 pect having to cut grass for hedding, take a sickle. 

 The long bent blade of a sickle will do the work four 

 times as fast as the biggesl camp knife. AVith a knife 

 you will cut about halt' enough; with a sickle you will 

 cut plenty, and it takes a layer of grass nearly a foot 

 thick with a double thickness under the head to make 

 a bedding that obliterates the many sticks, lumps and 

 inequalities which otherwise your tired bones and 

 muscles are sure to find. 



AVhere none of the mentioned materials are obtain- 

 able, any kind of brush or weeds is still far better 

 than no bedding. Brush and weeds should be laid on 

 the ground, butt down, with a slant of about forty-five 

 degrees toward the head end of the bed. Material of 

 this kind cut in mid- summer is apt to be inhabited by 

 various insects. I remember one camp on the Minne- 

 sota River, which I named, "Bug Camp" because with 

 the brush and weeds I had carried into the tent an 

 assortment of othorptera, coleoptera, lepidoptera and 

 other "optera" large and various enough to gladden 

 the heart of the most enthusiastic entomologist. How- 

 ever, the wife of the naturalist was not enthused over 

 the assortment of our tent-mates, and the situation be- 

 came interesting at my expense, when in the middle of 

 the night a humorously inclined cricket mistook me for 

 a weed. 



One need not, however, fear these accidental tent- 

 mates. Practically all insects except mosquitoes, rest 

 at night, including all Hies, bees and wasps. More- 



27 



