448 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lection. Last June Mr. Edward S. Sclimid, the bird fancier of 

 Washington, D. C, kindly loaned him a living specimen of a sub- 

 adult long-eared owl, and this j)ugnacious bird soon proved himself 

 to be a most caj^ital subject from which to secure the more unusual 

 attitudes so characteristic of the group. Having photographically 

 pictured him in postures of rest, he was next teased to assume various 

 ones of defiance, and these were secured with equal celerity and ease 

 — not little, unrecognizable inch-high affairs either, but only a degree 

 less than half natural size, capal)le of exhibiting all the external 

 characters of the species. From the collection one of these is se- 

 lected and offered to the reader in Fig. 2, and for a portrait of a 

 defiant owl it is surely a very striking likeness. 



Pictures as good as this one have been obtained by the writer of 

 the screech owl, Aiken's owl (male and female in one print), the 

 barred owl, and the barn owl, the last-named species being the most 

 difficult subject of this famous family yet handled. Success was at 

 last secured, however, where the specimen is shown (one third 

 natural size) resting on one leg uj)on an old stump of a tree in a 

 shady bit of woods. It has not at this writing yet been published. 



Turtles, frogs, snakes, and lizards have been, to tlie extent of a 

 score or more, taken with admirable success. My picture of the 

 tree frogs has already appeared both in London and in ISTew York, 

 and the common bullfrog in Appletons' Popular Science Monthly. 

 Forty or fifty have appeared in other places, and this is only noted 

 here as proof of the practicability of illustrating zoological works by 

 these methods, and in support of the fact of the way they are appre- 

 ciated and utilized by naturalists. 



Recently attention has been turned to the photography of fishes, 

 a group of subjects presenting more difficulties to confront the artist 

 and his camera than almost any other class. ^Nevertheless, success 

 along these lines, too, is coming fast, and it is safe to predict that 

 the photographic picture, in a vast number of instances, of ichthyo- 

 logical specimens will place the tediously produced pen-drawing in 

 black and white in the background. 



In July (1897) the Honorable United States Commissioner of 

 Fish and Fisheries, J. J. Price, Esq., at Washington, D. C, ex- 

 tended the writer unusual facilities to attempt some camera work in 

 this direction at the aquaria of the Central Station. Without any 

 special preparation this courtesy was almost at once availed of, and, 

 although the circumstances were by no means the most favorable 

 under which the first exposures were made upon the living fish in 

 the aquaria tanks, yet some of the results were more or less gratify- 

 ing, and certainly measured a standard of success sufficient to en- 

 courage other and more elaborate trials. Good photographic pictures 



