244 Pictures of Bird Life 



drooping leg's, and to surprise them on their way liome. On 

 seeing us tliey would pull up in their Hight, and sheer oft' in 

 anotlier direetion with nuieh eonvulsi\e and laborious energy. 

 At tlieir nests they are \ ery noisy, making tlie most extra- 

 ordinary grunting and groaning. 



The diffieulty in photographing tliese wary birds, so striking 

 in their appearanee and so interesting in tlieir habits, and the 

 ])ietures(pie nature of tlieir haunts, only made me more anxious 

 to make another attempt on different lines. 



Aeeordingly. in 11)01, a speeial expedition to the same place 

 was made in order to photograph the S]:)oonbills and Purple 

 Herons })y means of an automatie electric trap arrangement, 

 M^iicli had been devised for their especial benefit. The idea 

 was that, ])y placing this arrangement on the nest, the bird, on 

 its return, would, by treading on it, depress the \eyev of an 

 electric switch, and so put the current of a dry battery in 

 action, which would operate a shutter worked by an electro- 

 magnet on a concealed camera. l^y this plan there would 

 not be so much to alarm the birds, so quick to detect the 

 presence of any hidden photographer, who would be free to 

 work in another direction with a spare camera. However, on 

 arri^ al at the colony of Spoonbills' nests, it was at once evident 

 that this plan was impracticable for them ; for the young birds 

 were more than half grown, and ceaselessly wandered up and 

 down their nest, and would inevitably have sprung the trap 

 long before the parent birds returned. A modification of the 

 plan had to be adopted, and a string was fixed to the switch 

 to be pulled from a hiding-place in the reeds a little distance 



