It is important to get into this habit of cleaning up your camp ground before leaving it, as then farmers don’t have the trouble of having to clean their ground after you leave, and they are, therefore, all the more willing to let you use it.
The Woodpecker.—When you find that the ground round a tree is strewn with tiny chips of wood you may know at a glance that a woodpecker is making her nest there. The woodpecker chips away the bark and makes a deep hollow in the trunk. But she has sense enough to know that the chips which fall are telltales, so you may see her making efforts to tidy up the place, and in the end she will go to the trouble of flying away with every little chip and scrap in her beak to a distance, so that no enemy can see that she has been cutting a hole in that tree.
“No more of their camping on my ground!”
Bathing.—When in camp, bathing will be one of your joys and one of your duties, a joy because it is such fun, a duty because no Scout can consider herself a full-blown Scout until she is able to swim and to save life in the water.
But there are dangers about bathing for which every sensible Scout will be prepared.
First, there is the danger of cramp. This comes very often from staying in the water too long. Ten minutes is ample time as a rule for a girl to be in the water, five minutes is safer.
If you bathe within an hour and a half of taking a meal, that is before your food is digested, you are very likely to get cramp. Cramp doubles you up in extreme pain so that you cannot move your arms or legs, and down you go and drown.