Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts Part 5

Last year a man went out into the woods in America to try and see if he could live like the prehistoric men used to do; that is to say, he took nothing with him in the way of food or equipment or even clothing--he went just as he was, and started out to make his own living as best he could. Of course the first thing he had to do was to make some sort of tool or weapon by which he could kill some animals, cut his wood and make his fire and so on. So he made a stone axe, and with that was able to cut out branches of trees so that he could make a trap in which he eventually caught a bear and killed it. He then cut up the bear and used the skin for blankets and the flesh for food. He also cut sticks and made a little instrument by which he was able to ignite bits of wood and so start his fire. He also searched out various roots and berries and leaves, which he was able to cook and make into good food, and he even went so far as to make charcoal and to cut slips of bark from the trees and draw pictures of the scenery and animals around him. In this way he lived for over a month in the wild, and came out in the end very much better in health and spirits and with a great experience of life. For he had learned to s.h.i.+ft entirely for himself and to be independent of the different things we get in civilization to keep us going in comfort.

That is why we go into camp a good deal in the Boy Scout and in the Girl Guide movement, because in camp life we learn to do without so many things which while we are in houses we think are necessary, and find that we can do for ourselves many things where we used to think ourselves helpless. And before going into camp it is just as well to learn some of the things that will be most useful to you when you get there. And that is what we teach in the Headquarters of the Girl Guide Companies before they go out and take the field.

For instance, you must know how to light your own fire; how to collect dry enough wood to make it burn; because you will not find gas stoves out in the wild. Then you have to learn how to find your own water, and good water that will not make you ill. You have not a whole cooking range or a kitchen full of cooking pots, and so you have to learn to cook your food in the simplest way with the means at your hand, such as a simple cooking pot or a roasting stick or an oven made with your own hands out of an old tin box or something of that kind.

NATURE STUDY

It is only while in camp that one can really learn to study Nature in the proper way and not as you merely do it inside the school; because here you are face to face with Nature at all hours of the day and night. For the first time you live under the stars and can watch them by the hour and see what they really look like, and realize what an enormous expanse of almost endless s.p.a.ce they cover. You know from your lessons at school that our sun warms and lights up a large number of different worlds like ours, all circling round it in the Heavens. And when you hold up a s.h.i.+lling at arm's length and look at the sky, the s.h.i.+lling covers no less than two hundred of those suns, each with their different little worlds circling around them. And you then begin to realize what an enormous endless s.p.a.ce the Heavens comprise. You realize perhaps for the first time the enormous work of G.o.d.

Then also in camp you are living among plants of every kind, and you can study them in their natural state, how they grow and what they look like, instead of merely seeing pictures of them in books or dried specimens of them in collections.

All round you, too, are the birds and animals and insects, and the more you know of them the more you begin to like them and to take an interest in them; and once you take an interest in them you do not want to hurt them in any way. You would not rob a bird's nest; you would not bully an animal; you would not kill an insect--once you have realized what its life and habits are. In this way, therefore, you fulfill the Guide Law of becoming a friend to animals.

By living in camp you begin to find that though there are many discomforts and difficulties to be got over, they can be got over with a little trouble and especially if you smile at them and tackle them.

Then living among other comrades in camp you have to be helpful and do good turns at almost every minute, and you have to exercise a great deal of give and take and good temper, otherwise the camp would become unbearable.

So you carry out the different laws of courteousness, of helpfulness, and friendliness to others that come in the Guide Law. Also you pick up the idea of how necessary it is to keep everything in its place, and to keep your kit and tent and ground as clean as possible; otherwise you get into a horrible state of dirt, and dirt brings flies and other inconveniences.

You save every particle of food and in this way you learn not only cleanliness, but thrift and economy. And you very soon realize how cheaply you can live in camp, and how very much enjoyment you can get for very little money. And as you live in the fresh, pure air of G.o.d you find that your own thoughts are clean and pure as the air around you.

There is hardly one of the Guide Laws that is not better carried out after you have been living and practising it in camp.

_Habits of Animals._--If you live in the country it is of course quite easy to observe and watch the habits of all sorts of animals great and small. But if you are in a town there are many difficulties to be met with. But at the same time if you can keep pets of any kind, rabbits, rats, mice, dogs or ponies you can observe and watch their habits and learn to understand them well; but generally for Guides it is more easy to watch birds, because you see them both in town and country; and especially when you go into camp or on walking tours you can observe and watch their habits, especially in the springtime.

Then it is that you see the old birds making their nests, hatching out their eggs and bringing up their young; and that is of course the most interesting time for watching them. A good observant guide will get to know the different kinds of birds by their cry, by their appearance, and by their way of flying. She will also get to know where their nests are to be found, what sort of nests they are, what are the colors of the eggs and so on. And also how the young appear. Some of them come out fluffy, others covered with feathers, others with very little on at all. The young pigeon, for instance, has no feathers at all, whereas a young moorhen can swim about as soon as it comes out of the egg; while chickens run about and hunt flies within a few minutes; and yet a sparrow is quite useless for some days and is blind, and has to be fed and coddled by his parents.

Then it is an interesting sight to see the old birds training their young ones to fly, by getting up above them and flapping their wings a few times until all the young ones imitate them. Then they hop from one twig to another, still flapping their wings, and the young ones follow suit and begin to find that their wings help them to balance; and finally they jump from one branch to another for some distance so that the wings support them in their effort. The young ones very soon find that they are able to use their wings for flying, but it is all done by degrees and by careful instruction.

Then a large number of our birds do not live all the year round in England, but they go off to Southern climes such as Africa when the winter comes on; but they generally turn up here at the end of March and make their nest during the spring. Nightingales arrive early in April; wagtails, turtle doves, and cuckoos come late in April; woodc.o.c.k come in the autumn, and redpoles and fieldfares also come here for the winter. In September you will see the migrating birds collecting to go away, the starlings in their crowds and the swallows for the South, and so do the warblers, the flycatchers, and the swifts. And yet about the same time the larks are arriving here from the Eastward, so there is a good deal of traveling among the birds in the air at all times of the year.

How many of our American Scouts are able to supply from their observation all of our native birds to take the places of these mentioned in this lovely paragraph? Everyone should be able to.

_Nature in the City._--This noticing of small things, especially in animal life, not only gives you great interest, but it also gives you great fun and enjoyment in life. Even if you live in a city you can do a certain amount of observation of birds and animals. You would think there is not much fun to be got out of it in a murky town like London or Sheffield, and yet if you begin to notice and know all about the sparrows you begin to find there is a great deal of character and amus.e.m.e.nt to be got out of them, by watching their ways and habits, their nesting, and their way of teaching their young ones to fly.

OBSERVATION.

"_Stalking._--A Guide has to be sharp at seeing things if she is going to be any good as a Guide.

She has to notice every little track and every little sign, and it is this studying of tracks and following them out and finding out their meaning which we include under the name of stalking. For instance, if you want to find a bird's-nest you have to stalk. That is to say, you watch a bird flying into a bush and guess where its nest is, and follow it up and find the nest. With some birds it is a most difficult thing to find their nests; take, for instance, the skylark or the snipe. But those who know the birds, especially the snipe, will recognize their call. The snipe when she is alarmed gives quite a different call from when she is happy and flying about. She has a particular call when she has young ones about. So that those who have watched and listened and know her call when they hear it know pretty well where the young ones are or where the nest is and so on.

"_How to Hide Yourself._--When you want to observe wild animals you have to stalk them, that is, creep up to them without their seeing or smelling you.

"A hunter when he is stalking wild animals keeps himself entirely hidden, so does the war scout when watching or looking for the enemy; a policemen does not catch pickpockets by standing about in uniform watching for them; he dresses like one of the crowd, and as often as not gazes into a shop window and sees all that goes on behind him reflected as if in a looking-gla.s.s.

"If a guilty person finds himself being watched, it puts him on his guard, while an innocent person becomes annoyed. So, when you are observing people, don't do so by openly staring at them, but notice the details you want to at one glance or two, and if you want to study them more, walk behind them; you can learn just as much from a back view, in fact more than you can from a front view, and, unless they are scouts and look around frequently, they do not know that you are observing them.

"War scouts and hunters stalking game always carry out two important things when they don't want to be seen."

One is _Background_.--They _take care that the ground behind them, or trees, or buildings, etc., are of the same colour as their clothes_.

And the other is "_Freezing_".--If an enemy or a deer is seen looking for them, _they remain perfectly still without moving so long as he is there_.

_Tracking._--The native hunters in most wild countries follow their game by watching for tracks on the ground, and they become so expert at seeing the slightest sign of a footmark on the ground that they can follow up their prey when an ordinary civilized man can see no sign whatever.

But the great reason for looking for signs and tracks is that from these you can read a meaning.

It is exactly like reading a book. You will see the different letters, each letter combining to make a word, and the words then make sense; and there are also commas and full-stops and colons; all of these alter the meaning of the sense. These are all little signs, which one who is practised and has learnt reading, makes into sense at once, whereas a savage who has never learned could make no sense of it at all. And so it is with tracking.

TRACKING.

"Sign" is the word used by Guides to mean any little details, such as footprints, broken twigs, trampled gra.s.s, sc.r.a.ps of food, old matches, etc.

Some native Indian trackers were following up the footprints of a panther that had killed and carried off a young kid. He had crossed a wide bare slab which, of rock, of course, gave no mark of his soft feet. The tracker went at once to the far side of the rock where it came to a sharp edge; he wetted his finger, and just pa.s.sed it along the edge till he found a few kid's hairs sticking to it. This showed him where the panther had pa.s.sed down off the rock, dragging the kid with him. Those few hairs were what Guides call "signs."

This tracker also found bears by noticing small "signs." On one occasion he noticed a fresh scratch in the bark of a tree, evidently made by a bear's claw, and on the other he found a single black hair sticking to the bark of a tree, which told him that a bear had rubbed against it.

_Details in the Country._--If you are in the country, you should notice landmarks--that is, objects which help you to find your way to prevent your getting lost--such as distant hills and church towers; and nearer objects, such as peculiar buildings, trees, gates, rocks, etc.

And remember in noticing such landmarks that you may want to use your knowledge of them some day for telling some one else how to find his way, so you must notice them pretty closely so as to be able to describe them unmistakably and in their proper order. You must notice and remember every by-road and foot-path.

Remembrance of these things will help you to find your way by night or in fog when other people are losing themselves.

HORSES' TRACKS

[Ill.u.s.tration: Walking.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Trotting.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Canter.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _O.H. = Off Hind, etc._

Galloping.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lame Horse Walking: Which leg is he lame in?

_N.B.--The long feet are the hind feet._]

These are the tracks of two birds on the ground. One that lives generally on the ground, the other in bushes and trees. Which track belongs to which bird?

_Using your Eyes._--Let nothing be too small for your notice--a b.u.t.ton, a match, a hair, a cigar ash, a feather, or a leaf might be of great importance, even a fingerprint which is almost invisible to the naked eye has often been the means of detecting a crime.

With a little practice in observation you can tell pretty accurately a man's character from his dress.

How would you recognize that a gentleman was fond of fis.h.i.+ng. If you see his left cuff with little tufts of cloth sticking up, you may be sure he fishes. When he takes his flies off the line he will either stick them into his cap to dry, or hook them into his sleeve. When dry he pulls them out, which often tears a thread or two of the cloth.

Remember how "Sherlock Holmes" met a stranger, and noticed that he was looking fairly well-to-do, in new clothes with a mourning band on his sleeve, with a soldiery bearing and a sailor's way of walking, sunburns, with tattoo marks on his hands, and he was carrying some children's toys in his hands. What would you have supposed that man to be. Well, Sherlock Holmes guessed correctly that he had lately retired from the Royal Marines as a sergeant, that his wife had died, and that he had some small children at home.