UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES AFIELD 151 



around the lake shore, wherever I found a subject 

 on which I wanted to work and could not manage 

 efficiently fronvthe boat, I climbed out in the water, 

 after testing its depth with an oar, and set up my 

 camera in the muck. This was particularly messy 

 business, fraught with dangers of going under in a 

 fretwork of musk-rat burrows or quicksand, but I 

 was collecting illustrations for a portion of a book 

 devoted to swamp subjects and the only place to 

 secure my illustration was swampy lake shore or 

 inland swamp; so there was nothing to do but for- 

 get the discomforts and absorb myself beyond 

 any other thought in the work of securing my pic- 

 tures. When I had set up my camera, and focused 

 it on the subject, it was my custom to take an 

 exposure bulb with several yards of hose attached 

 in my hand or let it float on the water, while I went 

 forward and put the bed of flowers or whatever 

 composed my picture into the best shape possible 

 by removing out-of -focus limbs, flowers, or leaves 

 from the foreground, straightening out the whole 

 subject into the most artistic composition possible 

 to me. One particular stretch of lake shore was 

 thickly covered with pickerel weed at the height 

 of bloom, with its background of higher bushes 

 and arrow-head lilies, while a rippling current in 

 the water before it made a particularly exquisite 

 picture. I walked the length of this bed, bending 

 over it, pulling out some growth I did not want, 

 here and there removing leaves that were too 



