Automatic Photography by Electricity 



25 



nire on our side of tlie C'luiimel, nest in ^vcat nunil)crs. 

 One advantaoe in this very interesting nietliod of photo- 

 trappino- is tiiat it enables one to work with several cameras, 

 as is e\-ideneed by the fact that, at the very time the Purple 

 Heron was conipletino- the electric circuit, and thereby auto- 

 matically photographing itself, I was hnid at work a good 

 mile away, making exposure after exposure at adult Spoon- 

 bills standing in their nest and surrounded by their half- 

 fledged family. 



Lapwing isiTTiXG. Autojiatically photographed bv Liectricity. 



Truly this was a red-letter day, thus to obtain photographs 

 of these two fine birds, so interesting and so desirable in every 

 way in the eyes of an ornithologist, and yet so extremely 

 difficult, owing to their excessive timidity as well as to their 

 lo\ e of remote and unapproachable localities ! 



JNIany have been the attempts, carefully planned and 

 patiently carried out. but all in ^ain, to circumvent this timidity 

 and photograph them "at home" — attempts begun in ]89o, 

 and only successfully ended in 1901. 



