From such a hiding place, photographs can often be secured of timid birds at their nests.In attempting to take photographs it must be remembered that cameras of the pocket variety or fixed box type are almost useless. Most of them cannot be worked without special attachments at closer range than six feet, and, even if the focus is correctly guessed, the image is apt to be very small.In this work it is far better to invest in a cheap camera (second-hand if need be) with which one can obtain a definite image on the ground glass where the plate or film is to be.Focus the camera on some spot where it is expected the bird will come; usually this is on the nest or young, sometimes it is the food, a favorite perch, or some form of decoy.The next requisite is patience. If the coveted opportunity arrives, set off the shutter by hand in the blind, or, where this is not possible, by means of a long thread, after carefully hiding the camera with boughs, leaves, sods, etc.By reptiles we understand properly a certain class of vertebrate or backboned animals, which, on the whole, may be described as possessing scales or horny shields since most of them may be distinguished by this outer covering, as the mammals by their hair and the birds by their feathers.Such animals as thousand-legs, scorpions, tarantulas, etc.Though often erroneously referred to as reptiles, do not concern us in this connection.

They Are Called Metamorphic Rocks.

A boy may wear all the scout uniforms made, all the scout badges ever manufactured, know all the woodcraft, campcraft, scoutcraft and other activities of boy scouts, and yet never be a real boy scout.To be a real boy scout means the doing of a good turn every day with the proper motive and if this be done, the boy has a right to be classed with the great scouts that have been of such service to their country.To accomplish this a scout should observe the scout law.

It Is Found All Over The United States.

It is therefore not essential to describe here the formation of rope; its various sizes and strength.The important thing to know is how to use it to the best advantage. To do this an intelligent understanding of the different knots and how to tie them is essential.Every day sailors, explorers, mechanics, and mountain-climbers risk their lives on the knots that they tie.Thousands of lives have been sacrificed to ill-made knots.The scout therefore should be prepared in an emergency, or when necessity demands, to tie the right knot in the right way. Rapidity with which it can be tied.Its ability to hold fast when pulled tight.The readiness with which it can be undone. The following knots, recommended to scouts, are the most serviceable because they meet the above requirements and will be of great help in scoutcraft.If the tenderfoot will follow closely the various steps indicated in the diagrams, he will have little difficulty in reproducing them at pleasure.In practising knot-tying a short piece of hemp rope may be used.To protect the ends from fraying a scout should know how to "whip" them.

The same thing may be done with anyone of the six hundred and fifty-two different kinds of butterflies in the United States.Fishes may be roughly classified as fresh water, migratory between fresh and salt water, and marine.Among the families of American fresh-water fishes that are conspicuous on account of their size, abundance, or economic importance, or all of these, there may be mentioned the sturgeons, the catfishes, the suckers, the minnows or carps, the pikes, the killifishes, the trouts, salmons, and whitefishes, the perches, and the basses, and sun fishes.The migratory fishes fall into two groups, the anadromous and the catadtomous.

Among the living reptiles we distinguish four separate groups, the crocodiles, the turtles, the lizards, and the snakes.The crocodiles resemble lizards in shape, but are very much larger and live only in the tropics and the adjacent regions of the temperate zone.To this order belongs our North American alligator, which inhabits the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico and the coast country along the Atlantic Ocean as far north as North Carolina.They are hunted for their skin, which furnishes an excellent leather for traveling bags, purses, etc.