" CHAPTER X 

 Rare Pictures Afield 



I AM particularly partial to a pair of wren 

 pictures I have secured. At the time one 

 of these was made an article had been pub- 

 lished by a man who had managed to set his name 

 very high and whose word in ornithology carried 

 weight with the people. He wrote concerning 

 song birds that they delivered their songs with 

 distended throats and beaks closed. I had only 

 begun publishing and had small background before 

 the public to sustain my word on any subject, 

 but it appealed to me that if I could picture a 

 number of birds in full tide of song I certainly could 

 prove to the public that it was no more nearly 

 possible for a bird to sing a loud, full note with its 

 beak closed than it would be for a human being 

 with closed lips; so with each nest worked upon 

 I bent every effort toward securing a study of a 

 male bird singing or the female uttering her tribal 

 call. In the case of birds with long beaks, the 

 width to which the points part is both surprising 

 and amusing. I secured an excellent study one 

 evening of a male wren that stopped on a little 

 platform before his door and delivered himself of 



181 



