14 WILD NATURE'S WAYS. 



It aroused a good deal of interest and amusing 

 interrogation wherever it was seen along my route^ 

 but the best fun was provided by an aged shep- 

 herd, who had not the advantage of a close 

 examination. 



Finding a sandpiper's nest in the bottom of 

 a lonely little ghyll far up in the heart of the 

 fells, I placed the camera, minus the legs of the 

 tripod, on a flat stone in front of it, focussed, 

 put a plate in position, and, attaching about fifty 

 feet of pneumatic tubing, extended its full length 

 in the direction that would give me the best 

 view of the bird's nest. After carefully placing 

 the sheep over the apparatus and tying the 

 wool on the chest back, so that none of it should 

 wave in front of tlie lens, I erected my little 

 hiding tent at the opposite end of the pneumatic 

 tubing, covered it with rushes, and retired inside, 

 to wait the home-coming of my " sitter." I 

 had not been concealed ten minutes before a shep- 

 herd arrived on the top of a steep hill above me, and 

 began to send his dog round the stuffed sheep 

 with the intention of herding it. When it failed 

 to move my animal, the old man broke into un- 

 printably hard terms concerning his canine as- 

 sistant's lack of intelligence, but the poor, libelled 

 brute knew more than his choleric master, es- 

 pecially when he came to leeward of the sheep, 

 and caue:ht the aroma of the stuffer's workshop. 



