40 Pictures of Bird Life 



assistance to tlie sight absolutely necessary, and an ordinary 

 field-glass is an immense improyement on the naked eye : 

 but the new prismatic glasses present the object Avitli 

 such clearness and ^•i^•id distinctness that they are as 

 superior to the old-fashioned glass as that was to the 

 unassisted eyesight, while being half the size and half tlie 

 M'eight. They also giye a much larger field of yiew. 

 I^ooking at a bird forty or fifty yards away with a C^oerz 

 glass, medium power, I haye been fairly astonished at the 

 brilliancy and microscopic sharpness rendered by it. Not 

 only can you distinguish clearly the delicate markings of the 

 plumage, but the yery fibre of its feathers and the twinkle 

 of its eye can be seen as distinctly as if you were watching 

 a bird in a caoe close at hand. In fact, you can sec it 

 much more distinctly, for the glass appears to giye a strong- 

 stereoscopic effect, so that the bird seems to stand out from 

 its siuTonndings in a most Monderful manner. 



If nmch of marsh ^york be attempted — and it is, 

 I think, the most fascinating — then wading-trousers are 

 necessary. They should come well up to the shoulders, like 

 those which are ^xoYn by salmon-fishers, as the water is nearly 

 always yery deep and the bottom soft. The camera then 

 can be manipulated in four and Hxe feet of Mater. Nothing 

 is more aggTa^•ating than the attempt to use a camera on 

 its tripod on a small boat or narrow punt. As a rule it is 

 absolutely impossible to gi\e anything but an instantaneous 

 exposure, and for photographing nests instantaneous exposures 

 are no good. A small stop, a moderately fast plate, and 



