SIDE I.IGHTS ON BIRDS 



bird figures taken by the medium of the camera 

 have become generally popular, and not a few 

 eminent artists, of whom Mr. Archibald Thorburn 

 and Mr. Lodge are representative, devote them- 

 selves almost solely to avian portrayal. 



In Mr. Thorburn' s work one has often wondered 

 how the more delicate effects — the frown of the 

 eagle, the depressed head of the sleeping wader, 

 the lazy abandonment of the dusting partridge, 

 the easy swing of the tit on the frailest spray, and 

 the hundred other subtle suggestions of rest and 

 movement, faint discomfort in wind and glad 

 activity in sunshine — have been so cunningly 

 seized upon and set down in mere line and colour. 

 In " A Naturalist's Sketch-Book" the artist 

 shows us how from faintly traced beginnings the 

 very spirit and idea of movement in the living 

 thing are slowly built up, and, as he truly writes, 

 these may be more readily suggested in sketches 

 than in elaborate and finished pictures. All bird 

 lovers, we imagine, can recall some little scene 

 from Nature that has impressed them : the stolid 

 greenfinches on the apple bough : the little party 

 of goldfinches that on yellow-lined wings flit 

 across the waste to alight with sweet call-notes 

 on the seed-plumes that sink beneath their 

 weight. In the artist's pages every light poise 

 and casual gesture has been reproduced with a 

 fidelity that brings about instant recognition. 



In order adequately to depict birds a man must 

 be both a naturalist and an artist, and this com- 

 bination is, of necessity, rare. The naturalist 

 knows full well the charm and pictorial value of 

 his little bird-friends, but to him the medium of 

 brush and pencil is often denied. By the use of 

 the camera, however, he has been able to represent 

 something of the vast range of expression seen in 

 the dwellers in our fields and woods, on moorland, 

 rocks and sea. 



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