INSTRUCTIONS IN GENERAL 



almost invariably use some form of hiding arrangement in 

 which both camera and operator are concealed while photo- 

 graphing wild birds. We ourselves have not used any- 

 thing of this kind so far, but are able to see clearly that 

 such a system would be extremely helpful in certain cases. 

 Probably the reasons which have operated against its use, 

 so far as we are concerned, are the cost of making a **hide" 

 which could be always carried, and, alternatively, the length 

 of time required to improvise one on the spot. The system 

 has recently been given a trial by Mr. Les. Chandler, one 

 of the foremost Nature photographers in Australia. The 

 fact that he speaks of it in glowing terms is sufficient proof 

 of its efficiency. 



In the foregoing pages we have set down at length the 

 method by which our pictures have been obtained. We have 

 withheld nothing which has appealed to us as likely to be 

 useful to a beginner. It is our hope there will be a sufficient 

 number of such beginners to render it probable that some 

 at least of the methods we have described will prove helpful. 

 Of one thing we feel satisfied — a majority of those readers 

 who find interest in this book will have some popular mis- 

 conceptions of bird-photography dispelled. Almost with- 

 out exception, friends (many of them photographers of 

 experience) who have seen our pictures, had previously 

 held a decided conviction that this class of work was pos- 

 sible only to the expert photographer with an expensive 

 apparatus. 



The remarks of friends prompt us to mention another 

 matter. Many who see such pictures as that reproduced 

 on page 54, which depicts an adult bird perched on the 

 photographer's hand, express either back-handedly or 

 straight-forwardly, a doubt as to their genuineness. Per- 

 haps our friends, because they are friends, are at a 

 little disadvantage in this direction as compared with 

 the reader, who knows us not. Nevertheless, we 

 here give the assurance that every bird pictured in 

 these pages was a wild one, and was taken in 

 its natural surroundings. Further, except in one case, 

 any trustfulness evident from the photograph is no more 

 remarkable than that which will be experienced by any 

 observer who spends in the bush the same amount of time 

 as we have done. The exception referred to is that of the 

 Laughing Jackass, shown on page 100. This bird, though 



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