BIRDS OF OUR BUSH 



Our first exploit was an attempt to photograph the nest 

 of a Tom-tit which was built in a furze hedge not very far 

 from our own homes. We set up the camera on a rough 

 tripod of palings (to purchase a tripod was beyond our 

 means), and made several exposures from a distance of 

 about eighteen inches. This done, we marched home in 

 blissful ignorance of our fortune — misfortune it happened 

 to be. We were quickly enlightened, but even then attri- 

 buted the appearance of shapeless light and shadow on the 

 negative to anything rather than the correct cause. The 

 plates, in our opinions, were certainly defective. 



We may here assure the beginner, after some years of 

 experience, that defects in the plates are the least likely 

 cause of mysterious failures. However, our next attempt, 

 which should have shown an adult Tom-tit at the nest, was 

 a repetition of the previous failure, and our disappointment 

 was keen. It was at this stage that we decided to take 

 the commonsense course, and investigated thoroughly the 

 working of our machine. With the aid of a piece of 

 tissue-paper pasted to a blank plate, which served as a 

 focussing screen, we soon found that our apparatus, used 

 normally, was suitable for photographing objects only at a 

 distance of six feet or more. Hence our failures. We 

 also found, however, that as the size of the iaperture 

 admitting the light was reduced, so could the camera be 

 moved closer to the subject. Acting on this discovery, we 

 succeeded in obtaining pictures of nests and other still 

 subjects by using an aperture about the size of a pin's head 

 and making exposures up to seven minutes. Photography 

 of birds — our real objective — still eluded us. 



Further experiments with the tissue paper revealed the 

 fact that the greater the distance separating the lens from 

 the plate, the nearer could the camera be placed to the sub 

 ject. We thereupon invented a contrivance by means of 

 which the plate was held against the back door of the 

 camera, a couple of inches further from the lens than its 

 normal position. This threw objects at a distance of 

 twenty inches into sharp focus upon the plate without re- 

 quiring a small aperture. It, however, restricted our 

 operations to one exposure per day. With the camera 

 arranged in this way we achieved a certain amount of suc- 

 cess. Just how far we succeeded may be judged by the 

 reader after he has examined the photographs of a Straw- 



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