cady]. MOUNT SHASTA CAMP FOR NATURE LOVERS 213 



Sometimes a careful piece of observational work is done by each 

 student again it may be given a game of trying out all the senses 

 to see how many things each can find in a given time. Often 

 the lesson is determined by the discovery of a junco's nest beside 

 the trail, a towhee's family in a thicket, by the stream, a city of 

 termites in an old decayed log or a struggling solitary wasp 

 mother, dragging home her prey. Crouched close about her hole 

 in the ground we watch, breathlessly, as she pulls the deadened 

 caterpillar into her pit and lays her egg, out again to fit and fill 

 the opening with perfect skill. At times we give ourselves to 

 watching a woodpecker at work, a nuthatch searching the tree 

 trunk for insects or listening to the call of the jays. Another day 

 we spend with the butterflies in the meadows beyond the stream, 

 great swallowtails or white spirit-like flutterers looking like stray 

 snow flakes hovering about the topmost branches of the dark 

 green firs. Again it is a day with the fairy realm of ferns and 

 mosses. Nature's "gentle love tokens" which grow in every 

 crack and cranny apparently forgotten by the other plants. 



Enough, perhaps, to suggest what we do about Camp yet there 

 are the longer trips as well. The long tramp up to the mountains 

 itself takes us from the valley flora through various plant zones 

 to timber line and others on the naked rock ridges — from Nature 

 at her friendliest with luxurious masses of tiger lilies and orchids 

 to timber line where only crouching, storm-beaten adventurers 

 meet Nature at her harshest. The Alpine flora of Mt. Shasta is 

 disappointing in its richness. It is reserved for the Mt. Eddy trip 

 to thrill us with glory of color and above all to show us our first 

 patches of marsh land out of which the Cobra-like heads of Dar- 

 lingtonia pitcher plants lift themselves to the sun, the ogres of 

 the plant world. Another trip that takes us to the titanic cham- 

 bers of Pluto's lanes, formed by the bursting bubbles from the age 

 old volcanic days when Mt. Shasta burned. With candles held 

 high we form a long procession through the monster chambers 

 startling the bats and light-footed mice from the black nooks and 

 cracks which have long lain in deadly stillness. With these or 

 with the walk to Summit Lake or the scramble over Sunset Hill, or 

 away to the falls of the McCloud River or to the great fish hatchery 

 at Sisson, where you will, nature students are busy with new sights, 

 new inspirations, new stimuli and are sure to take home better 

 health of body, mind and heart. 



