OFF CHATHAM BARS 199 



pointed wings. The wailing that was going on made me 

 think of the slaughter of a battle, only that I knew the wails 

 were not of anguish but of satisfaction, eagerness, jealousy. 

 The jaeger's wail was in a high-pitched key, somewhat stri- 

 dent ; that of the shearwater was mellower and lower in the 

 scale. 



As for me, I was just in my element, fairly wild with de- 

 light, feeling like an admiral on his quarter-deck when victory 

 is surely his own. As fast as I could, I loaded the reflex 

 camera, selected a single bird nearest me, in flight or in the 

 act of alighting, or else some pretty combination of birds, and 

 fired away. It was a perfect fusillade, yet each exposure was 

 made with thought and care, though each followed the other 

 with considerable rapidity. Meanwhile my friends had pluckily 

 aroused themselves to see the great sight, and I pointed out 

 to them the different sorts of birds — six kinds in all, there 

 were. The doctor had with him a small camera, and he took 

 a few snap-shots. 



For over an hour my battery was in constant action. Then 

 the plates were used up, so I darkened the cuddy, and crawled 

 into it to change plates. This took some time, and when I 

 emerged a big cloudbank was making up from the west. Just 

 as it began to cover the sun, something went wrong with the 

 focal-plane shutter, — a chip got into it, I found out that 

 evening, — and it would not work. It was time, anyhow, to 

 stop and get in before the tide turned, so I quit work. It was 

 singular that all day I saw but two Wilson's Petrels. Yet it 

 was far more of an achievement to have photographed the 

 jaegers, which I have never found as tame as, for some 

 reason, they were this day. Unfortunately a good many of 

 the pictures proved worthless on account of the ground-glass 

 having been reset a trifle out of register. A few good ones, 

 however, repaid me for the trip. 



