UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES AFIELD 139 



to his body so tightly that he appeared not more 

 than half of his original size, drew down his neck 

 and pointed^his beak almost straight up, putting 

 his entire body into a position as nearly perpen- 

 dicular as possible. He was only a few inches 

 from his grassy background, while the morning 

 sun was shining directly on him, for he was on the 

 north bank of the lake. I said to my husband: 

 "I have no camera, but let me make a test of what 

 I could do if I had one." Slowly dropping to my 

 knees I picked up a tackle box in the bottom of the 

 boat, pulled to me a coat which my husband had 

 discarded, set the tackle box on the seat where I 

 had been sitting, and, using the coat for a dark- 

 cloth, I went through every motion that would 

 have been required to set up a camera, focus it, 

 expose, and change plates. The bird stood motion- 

 less. I suggested to my husband that he care- 

 fully move the boat five or six feet closer, then 

 again I went through the performance of taking 

 a picture. We repeated this several times, until 

 my end of the boat was exactly ten feet from 

 the bird. I could not see that an eyelid quivered 

 or that he moved the tip of a feather; nor did I see 

 any reason for flushing him, because there was a 

 faint hope that I might come around the lake shore 

 some other morning and find him in the same 

 spot, when I was prepared to reproduce his like- 

 ness. So with exactly the same caution we had 

 used in approaching him we slipped away and left 



