GREGARIOUS MAN. 155 



good shape, took his departure for his home 

 across the creek, while I proceeded to prepare 

 ray first meal in my new surroundings. My 

 initial offering from nature was a pint of wild 

 raspberries, gathered from the copse back of the 

 tent and stewed for sauce. The long drought 

 had caused them to shrivel and dry but when 

 stewed they expanded and absorbed water until 

 they were as large and fine as though rain in 

 plenty had fallen on them in the weeks gone by. 



It is my fear that my privacy in this camp 

 will be too much broken on account of that 

 gregarious instinct and spirit of curiosity which 

 pervades the genus Homo. Dinner was not over 

 when M.'s son, a youth of sixteen years or 

 thereabouts, appeared and stayed several hours, 

 finally taking the rifle and going with me on 

 my initial fishing trip. As long as he was with 

 me luck was wholly absent, but no sooner did 

 he depart across fields to the mail box than I 

 began to catch sunfish and in an hour had nine, 

 one of them an especially fine old male of the 

 long-eared 55 kind whose coat in diversity of col- 

 or would have outshone that one most noted in 

 which Joseph of old appeared. 



Going back to camp I found there two other 

 visitors awaiting my arrival. These I had to 

 entertain as best I could during the hour or 

 more which I had intended to use in getting 



56 Lepomis megalotis Raf. 



