Jenene AL Urb UB ON BU Lowe erN 5) 
the two young to the photographers below. They were extremely bored 
by the whole business, slumped down on a rock side by side and fell asleep. 
Of course the young were returned to their nests. On this trip between 
500 and 600 eider ducks gave us a wonderful show. They are often seen 
in Muskongus Bay, but no nests have been discovered. Off the island 
where we lunched we saw two females. Mr. Buchheister sent us on a 
treasure-hunt in search of the down-lined nests, but without success. On 
the return, as the boat approached the dock, Mr. Cruickshank still had 
enough energy left, after climbing two trees and scrambling over rocks all 
day, to stand on his head at the prow of the boat and wave his legs in 
the air to signal a successful trip. 
While the bird trips are probably the most interesting of the camp 
experiences, every day holds something new. In the afternoons at 2:30 
we set out on a three-hour field trip, armed with the paraphernalia of our 
specialty and looking pretty funny — the insect chasers with butterfly nets, 
the plant group with magnifying glasses and vascula, the marine lifers 
with glass-bottomed pails and hip-boots. I chose plant study, under the 
direction of Miss Farida Wiley, a botanist who teaches at the American 
Museum of Natural History in the winter. We visited a new habitat every 
day — peat bog, meadow, swamp, salt marsh, country road, open fields, 
ponds, deciduous woods, deep spruce forest. We learned to identify seven- 
teen different ferns, and a number of mosses, club-mosses, trees, shrubs, 
and flowering plants. In a marshy meadow we discovered exquisite pink 
pogonia, one of the orchids. In a peat bog in the heart of the forest the 
pitcher plant bloomed. Pink lady slippers and coral-root were delightful 
finds. While we looked at hawkweed along the roadside, chestnut-sided 
warblers sang cordially from the trees overhead, “very pleased ta meet’ 
cha!”’ Miss Wiley is an all-round naturalist, and while we observed plants 
she called our attention to whatever birds were about in the afternoon. On 
a Sunday afternoon when the whole camp could go along, a trip was made 
which contained a rare treat — something to be found in few other places 
in the world. It’s a surprise, so if you want to see it you will just have 
to go to camp yourself! 
Nature activity, which alternates with bird study in the mornings, is 
great fun. The work is led by Miss Dorothy Treat. She is the director 
of the Junior Audubon clubs for the National Society, and editor of the 
School Nature League Bulletins. The first morning we had a lesson in 
weather forecasting. We learned how to make a barometer out of a coca- 
cola bottle and a bent glass tube; how to estimate wind velocity by observing 
plants, trees, and smoke in motion; and among more useful information, 
how to tell temperature by a cricket’s song. You count his chirps per 
minute with a stop watch, subtract 40 from the total, divide by four and 
add 50 and you have the temperature! I must confess we never tried it. 
Every morning a committee is appointed to forecast the weather for the 
day. With neither newspaper nor radio on the island we were expected to 
depend on our own predictions. The morning I served on the committee I 
shamelessly eavesdropped on Mr. Buchheister and the boat captain dis- 
