68 BIRDS 



The female finally reached the nest, and from the 

 instant of perching to the time she settled by the side 

 of the two ugly, leathery-looking young birds, her atti- 

 tude was one of extreme caution and suspicion, as the 

 camera was tied to the tree within six feet of the nest. 

 The male put in his appearance with a great bluster of 

 apparent courage, lighting within two feet of the female. 



With their snaky necks craning and waving in all 

 directions, their rat-like eyes searching every nook and 

 cranny for possible enemies or suspicious dangerous 

 movements, while their acute hearing gave an alarm at 

 the snapping of every twig, each seemed to await the 

 advance of the other. First one and then the other, with 

 cautious and awkward waddles, went down the limb lead- 

 ing to the nest, all the while giving vent in protesting 

 Anhinga to disapproval of the presence of that black 

 something with the big, staring, glass eye too near the 

 domicile. 



The female, after reaching the nest, spread her wings 

 so as to protect the young from the glare of the sun. 

 First one young bird and then another received a portion 

 of pre-digested food from the mother's beak, the mother 

 all the while keeping the young in the shade, without 

 letting her body touch them. I watched this performance 

 for several minutes with unbounded interest before I 

 pulled the line on the camera shutter and made my first 

 Anhinga photograph. Then the tired, muddy, patient 

 and anxious camera man folded his tent, so to speak, 

 and hiked to other parts of the rookery. 



Although I lived in doubting anticipation of the re- 

 sult of my efforts, I was sure that the light conditions 

 and time of exposure were correct and that proved to 

 be the case, as the frontispiece in this book testifies. 



Many a naturalist has spent weeks in the vicinity of 

 the nesting site of the Snake-bird without securing a 

 good picture. (Fig. 17.) My own pictures were obtained 

 after much painstaking effort and patience. ''The 

 Brooding Anhinga" is probably the best photograph ever 

 made of this shy bird. In the grouping is contained 

 a complete record of the household doing of the Anhinga 

 nursery. The brooding attitude of the mother, the plead- 



