28o 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



success and failure in the late after- The Old Man of the Sea. 



noon hours when a majority of amateur The literature of mythology is full 



photographs are taken. And the dif- of references to aquatic monsters, us- 



ference in speed between F 8 and F 4.5. ually part human and part fish, and 



which is the working aperture of the 



fastest anastigmats is as 64 to 20 1/4. 



That means that an exposure of 1/50 



of a second on a squirrel, with the an- 



astigmat, affects the plate as much as 



an exposure of 1/15 of a second with 



the best rectilinear — and in 1/15 of a 



second the squirrel is liable to move 



all over the field of view. 



A single grateful thought toward 

 Heaven is the most complete prayer- — 



Lessing. 



A Good Shot Well Received. 



This interesting photograph was 

 sent to The Guide to Nature by C. 

 Stevenson, of North Yakima, Wash- 

 ington. It is one of the best illus- 

 trations of the commercial phrase "re- 

 ceiving goods through the middle man" 

 that we have ever seen. 



HE HIT THE MARK! 



PORTRAIT OF A FISH! 



nearly all primitive peoples have be- 

 lieved or still believe in some of these 

 marine creatures of the imagination. 

 They have often been worshipped as 

 deities but more often feared as 

 demons or as omens of storm or plague. 

 Perhaps the earliest known was the 

 fish-headed god Oannes, or Hea, of the 

 ancient Chaldeans, but the Greeks and 

 Romans and various other peoples on 

 down through the Middle Ages be- 

 lieved in tritons, nereids, mermaids, 

 sea-satyrs, etc. Even the early natural 

 history of Aldrovanus, Gesner and 

 others was not free from such suppo- 

 sititious animals which were figured in 

 some of these works. 



Africa, the land of so many mys- 

 teries, has yielded up the original of 

 another fabulous monster. Anyone 

 familiar with the Arabian Nights will 

 easily recognize from our illustrations 

 "The Old Man of the Sea." It might 

 also be the original of the "Sea Bishop" 

 of Gesner, Sluper and others, but from 

 the fact that this aquatic member of 

 the clergy was "seen off the coast of 



