THE LURE OF FIELD WORK 63 



worker is the tiny red lice which infest many birds 

 to such an extent it is marvellous that they survive. 

 In handling tlie young of a shrike family, the his- 

 tory of which is given in a bird book of mine en- 

 titled "Friends in Feathers," I covered myself with 

 these tormenting pests. Another day a friend who 

 was helping me and I had the same experience with 

 young quail from a nest near the Wabash; and later, 

 on our farm, I had perhaps the choicest experience 

 in this line. I was working on a nest of swallows 

 under the floor of the upstairs of the barn, and in 

 order to get the instantaneous exposure required 

 to show the old birds feeding the young, I removed 

 a large mirror from one of the dressing tables in 

 the Cabin and set it up in the barnyard on a line 

 with a window, so that it threw direct sunlight 

 upon the nest for the greater part of an hour each 

 forenoon. With the help of a ladder, I set up and 

 focused my camera on the nest, waiting in a stall 

 below for the appearance of the birds, climbing the 

 ladder and changing the plates at each exposure. 

 These birds were infested with red lice that dropped 

 from the nest and fell from the old ones as they 

 flew. Before I finished this series I made a prac- 

 tise of binding a napkin dipped in alcohol tightly 

 over my hair, and at the finish of each hour's work 

 I made a mad race for home, where I could secure 

 a hot bath and a complete change of clothing. It 

 is to me one of the marvels of nature that the tender 

 young birds of a nest survive the myriads of red 



