All communications for this department should be sent to the Department 

 Editor, Mr. Harry G. Higbee, 13 Austin Street, Hyde Park, Massachusetts. 

 Items, Articles and photographs in this department not otherwise credited 

 are by this Department Editor. 



A Suggestion to Bird-Photographers. 



EDITORIAL BY WILFRED A. FRENCH, IN 

 PHOTO-ERA. 



One of the reasons that excellently 

 illustrated articles on bird-photography 

 are so scarce is because most camerists 

 lack the necessary discrimination, skill 

 and patience. They argue that because 

 the act of photographing individual 

 birds, either free or surrounded by 

 tree-branches, twigs and foliage, pre- 

 sents certain and obvious physical dif- 

 ficulties, the results must be accepted 

 as technically satisfactory achieve- 

 ments. Because many of these not 

 particularly creditable photographs 

 have been accepted and published in 

 periodicals devoted to outdoor sports 

 and activities, is no proof of their ex- 

 cellence. It is not even certain that 

 they have met the approval of those 

 whom they were designed to interest. 

 Merely because it was difficult to make, 

 the reader of a sports-magazine is 

 asked to admire an intricate mass of 

 reeds and grasses in which is con- 

 cealed, somewhere, a mother-bird sit- 

 ting on its nest. It impresses us rather 

 as a puzzle with the accompanying 

 query, "Find the bird." Or it will be 

 some other bird or creature so photo- 

 graphed with its natural surroundings 

 or camouflage, that it will be extremely 

 difficult for the ordinary eye to dis- 

 tinguish and study. That it is quite 

 possible to procure direct photographs 

 of song-birds, water-fowl and other 

 creatures in a semi-wild state, that are 

 distinct and sharply defined, can be 

 shown by the perusal of past numbers 

 of this magazine Of course, the cam- 

 erist eager to make successful pictures 

 of song-birds must possess the neces- 

 sary temperament for such work and, 

 particularly, the adequate apparatus 



and accessories A photographic pub- 

 lication is hardly the medium for' pho- 

 tographs of subjects in natural history, 

 or any other activity, for which apol- 

 ogies should be made because of tech- 

 nical deficiencies. Moreover, the ser- 

 ious-minded photographer will not 

 rest content until he has achieved that 

 which is within the scope of photo- 

 graphic possibility. 



A Song Sparrow Takes a Cold Bath. 



PA' F. II. VAN HISE, SUMMERLAND, BRIT- 

 ISH COLUMBIA, CANADA. 



One evening, during the last week of 

 January, about a half hour after sunset, 

 I saw a song sparrow take a bath. It 

 flew to the edge of the lake, and stood on 

 a stone so that the spray might splash 

 over it. After standing for a few 

 minutes and not getting wet enough, it 

 flew to another stone near the shore, so 

 that nearly every wave submerged it. 



Three times a wave larger than usual 

 nearly washed the bird from the stone ; 

 considerable fluttering- and struggling- 

 were needed to help it keep its footing. 

 It then returned to the shore, and again 

 exposed itself to the spray. To that bath 

 the bird devoted fifteen minutes. The 

 temperature of the air was thirty-seven 

 degrees ; that of the lake was thirty six 

 degrees. 



(The Okanagan Lake has been frozen 

 over only once in twenty-three years.) 



Nature's work is all of it good, all 

 of it purposeful, all of it wonderful, all 

 of it beautiful. We like or dislike cer- 

 tain things which may be a way of ex- 

 pressing our prejudice or our limita- 

 tion ; but the work is always perfect of 

 its kind irrespective of human appreci- 

 ation.— John C. Van Dyke in "The 

 Desert." 



