244 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [12:5— May, 191ti 



able, near good water, and where some sort of bedding is handy. 

 It is a good rule, when you encounter this combination after three 

 o'clock, to stop and pitch camp. The fire should be built where it 

 cannot possibly spread to adjacent timber, or get to running in the 

 leaves or the dry grass. It should not be built out of or against 

 logs or stumps that are so large that you can not put the fire out 

 when you leave the next morning. Good judgment in selecting 

 camp sites is one of the marks of the woodsman. Two or three 

 sticks of hard wood, not too dry, laid on the fire just before turning 

 in, will hold the fire for many hours. Lay them parallel to each 

 other and close together. If the night is cool, you will probably 

 have to turn out two or three times to renew the fire, and it is well 

 to have a dozen good-sized sticks of wood three feet long and eight 

 or ten inches in diameter to carry through the night. 



Finally it adds a good deal to the zest of the trip if it can have 

 some objective. To follow down a meandering stream and explore 

 the possibilities of fishing in it ; to set out for a particular mountain, 

 or even conspicuous hill; to tramp to an abandoned qUarry or 

 mine looking for fossils or minerals; to make the rounds of some 

 lake intent on securing pictures of the nests of water birds or of the 

 birds themselves — some definite objective of this sort is very much 

 worth while on the camping trip. I should not forget a good book 

 as a part of the equipment. If you have not read or have not 

 recently reread Stevenson's" Travels with a Donkey," it makes a 

 good companion for the camp fire. 



Book Reviews 



Plant Life. Charles A. Hall. Pp. xi + 380; 74 full page 

 illustrations, 50 of which are in colors. A. & C. Black, 

 London, 191 5. 

 This work is apparently the result of an attempt to give a 

 semi-popular presentation of the science of botany. The order 

 of topics, namely, the great groups of plants from lowest to highest, 

 is not unlike that found in several well-known books. To these 

 topics others are added dealing with the food of plants, perpet- 

 uation of the race, plant defenses, and a discussion of plant ecology 

 as a new field of botany. 



Like a good many other writers the author assumes that since 

 one-celled forms are simplest and since protoplasm is fundamental 



