mccaughey] over- night NATURE-STUDY TRIPS 155 



brought, and everyone is satisfied, Food and cooking utensils 

 may be used in common, as mutual agreement dictates, after camp 

 has been established. Bread, jam, steak, bacon, cheese, pickles, 

 eggs, oranges, figs, chocolate, and coffee were standard items in our 

 camp diet. A small frying pan is best for bacon ; bread may then 

 be fried in the grease. Steak can be broiled on forked sticks. 

 Many of the complicated cook kits are worthless or unnecessar\\ 

 Two or three small fr\'ing pans, and a couple of pails for chocolate 

 and coffee, are stifficient for a party of ten or twelve. 



When the camp site is abandoned, it should be left clean and 

 tidy. All rubbish, papers, etc., should be burned. Tin cans and 

 bottles should be buried or hidden. The average American pic- 

 nicker and camper leaves a disgraceful litter. This should be 

 absolutely prohibited. Great care should be taken to completely 

 extinguish the camp-fire. After the packs have been made up, it is 

 well to look over the ground and make sure that nothing has been 

 forgotten. 



It is essential, of course, that the two- or three-day camping trip 

 be a real nature-study trip, and not a mere picnic. Genuine 

 observational natural history studies must be made the dominant 

 note, to which the other features of the trip are subsidiary'. This is 

 almost wholly a matter of judicious planning on the part of the 

 leader. 



The trip's value is greatly increased by carefully planned pre- 

 liminary talks or lessons, in which all important features, itinerary, 

 natural history, etc., are discussed. By this means ever\- one in 

 the party is familiar, at the outset, with the significant features of 

 the excursion. An excellent device is to assign or suggest some 

 specific line of obser\'ation or collecting to each member of the 

 party. One person lists all the trees ; another, the plants in flower ; 

 a third collects mosses and lichens; a fourth lists the birds, a fifth 

 collects butterflies; and so on. This arrangement gives each 

 member of the party the feeling of personal responsibility for 

 some particular phase of nature-study. Around the camp-fire, and 

 later in the class room, the individual findings are reported, dis- 

 cussed, and made of general educational value. 



Suggestive topics for trips 

 Plant life of the roadside — herbs, shrubs, vines; flowering, 

 abundance, modes of distribution. 



