52 



THE OSPREY. 



But I found that I could not get near enough to 

 operate an ordinary lens in person, and when 

 I boldly planted the camera upon the tripod, and 

 focussed upon the nest, to make the exposure 

 from a distance, the bird refused to return until 

 the instrument was removed. By another sea- 

 son I had learned the value of caution; so when, 

 on the 4th of June, I found a nest, I pro- 

 ceeded differently. Taking a couple of flat 

 stones from a wall. I placed them five or six 

 feet from the nest, attached the long fifty-foot 

 rubber tube, focussed the camera on the ground 

 an inch or two in front of the eggs, set the 

 shutter for just a perceptible time exposure, 

 the sun being slightly overcast, and. covering 

 the pile with weeds and grass, withdrew. The 

 whole was about a foot high. 



This much accomplished, it seemed probable 

 that the bird would bear the camera nearer. So 

 I flushed her. and moved the instrument within 

 two or three feet, arranging it as before. This 

 time it only took the bird five minutes to return, 

 and I soon had the second exposure (Fig. 1), 

 again without startling her. From a rock much 

 nearer than the one previously chosen, she 

 watched me photograph her eggs (Fig. 2), and, 

 as I departed, I had only gone a few steps when 

 sbe flew back and settled down upon her treas- 

 ures, henceforth to be unmolested. 



In the previous season I had also found a 

 Whip-poor-will's nest, the first I had ever seen. 

 I was exploring a few acres of woods upon a 

 slight knoll, surrounded by pasture-lands, mak- 

 ing, as it were, a sort of island. Just as I was 



Pig •;. THE NIGHTHAWK'S NEST 



Meanwhile the owner was perched on a rock 

 a few rods away. After a couple of minutes sin- 

 flitted toward the nest, took a turn around the 

 camera, then came to see what I was doing 

 behind the wall, took a few more turns around 

 the nest, and went back to the rock. The cir- 

 cling about the nest was repeated at frequent 

 intervals for quarter of an hour or more, and I 

 began to fear the same outcome as in the previ- 

 ous season. But at length, as she hovered, she 

 suddenly threw up her wings and settled down 

 upon the eggs. I waited a few minutes for her 

 to become composed, then crept up to the end of 

 the tube, and squeezed the bulb, without start- 

 ling the bird at the click of the shutter. 



emerging from the largest trees into a belt of 

 oak scrub, where the track ended at a rail fence, 

 with a ploughing beyond, suddenly a Whip- 

 poor-will floated airily away from the ground 

 ten yards ahead, and disappeared through the 

 bushes. Back in the timber I had started 

 another bird from a prostrate log, then from a 

 rock, and had been looking for a nest. Where 

 this second bird started was a little opening in 

 the scrub into which the sun beat down warm, 

 and a small pile of old brush. Just beyond this, 

 two yards from the fence, I at once espied a 

 beautiful egg. lying in the hollow of a great 

 leaf, without any preparation whatever in the 

 way of a nest. (Fig. 3). This was the 5th of 



