THE CAMP 
OF 
THE ESSEX COUNTY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 
Rodman A. Nichols. 
Do you remember when you were a small boy, just begin¬ 
ning to take notice of the birds and trees and flowers and 
the wild things of the out of doors? Do you see, far back, 
the first night you spent in the open beside a pond or stream 
or maybe on a beach with the pound of the waves in your 
ears ? Do you remember the first meal you cooked yourself, 
the smell of bacon, the scorched taste of potatoes baked in 
the embers, the coffee that boiled over and would not settle? 
Does that first nest of young birds linger in your mind, your 
first fish, your first trap set, your first duck or partridge ? 
Can you recall how, as time went on, a longing grew, for 
the one thing that seemed to carry all the romance of the 
open, a thing to be attained above all others, a place to go, 
in fact “A CAMP.” 
Maybe, in time, like some of us, you got your camp, your 
summer home, a little farm or a place on the beach, and it 
is all quite commonplace now, but if you remember those 
days of longing and final attainment you will feel a little of 
those things the “little boys” of the Essex County Ornitho¬ 
logical Club have felt and you will understand their long- 
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