FEATHERED GEMS 



After photographing the nest with the camera on the 

 tripod, I thought I would try for a picture of the old 

 bird on the nest. It was rather a hard problem to hide 

 the camera properly. The only way seemed to be to 

 tie it on the projecting rock on the side of the gully, a 

 little above and in front of the nest. At first there seemed 

 to be no place to stand to focus, but Ned generously 

 offered to let me stand on his head with one foot, having 

 the other over a rock, grasping a sapling with one hand 

 while I adjusted the camera with the other. It was 

 hard work and took quite a while, but at last the camera 

 was rigged, connected by a thread, and covered with 

 dead leaves. From over the brook we watched, till, in 

 a quarter of an hour, the bird stole back to the nest, 

 when I went around and pulled the thread for timed 

 exposure, once to open the shutter, and in ten seconds 

 to close it. In this way I exposed four plates suc- 

 cessively, securing one picture only, as in the other 

 cases the shutter did not work properly, closing too 

 quickly to get an image there in the deep shadow. 

 When we came again later to photograph the young, 

 we were sorry to find all but one thrown out of the nest, 

 with wounds on their bodies, and the other wounded 

 so badly that it soon died — crows or jays this time, I 

 suspect. 



In the tall dark hemlocks around the falls, the Black- 

 throated Green Warblers are abundant, as they are in 

 nearly every grove of evergreens. One can hardly 

 listen a minute without hearing their dreamy little song 



