13 
handy, put his hand out of bed, and touched the inside of the 
creature’s mouth. Baby cuckoo gulped, and it and he sank down 
again to repose. Mr, Duncan seems to understand birds just as 
if he were Mr. Barrie’s Peter Pan. Like Peter, all that he lacks 
is feathers. Incidentally he mentioned several instances where 
he has fulfilled the rdle of parent to fledglings, with excellent 
photographic results. 
In attempting to photograph the young of the meadow pippit 
Mr. Duncan had personally experienced the extraordinary intelli- 
gence and devotion of the mother bird in protection of her 
young. The male bird sought first to attract his attention away 
from the nest, but this failing, the mother, as a last extremity, 
went hopping, flying away just out of reach, with every appear- 
ance of a broken wing. Evidently the bird’s idea was to make 
him think he was on the point of catching her, and so lead him 
further and further from the nest. The mother wry-neck, found 
at the bottom of a tree-trunk hatvhing, startled him with a sound 
as if she had smashed all the eggs and flew whirring straight at 
his face. She may have meant him to think that the eggs were 
broken ; but they were safe enough. And Mr. Duncan delighted 
his audience with photographs of the newly-hatched fledglings, 
as they peeped timorously from the hole in the tree looking out 
on the strange, big world. The lecturer had photographs of 
rabbits just emerging from their burrows. The old master buck 
always came out first, after the general stampede caused by an 
alarm. After satisfying himself that danger was gone, he would 
go round the other burrows stamping with his paw as a sign that 
the inhabitants could come out. Lying under a gorse bush, Mr. 
Duncan snapped them at interesting moments. 
An amusing comedy touch came with his pictures of owls. 
One showed the owl placedly indifferent. The next, its great 
solemn eyes wore an aspect of surprised inquiry, until by varying 
stages, it worked up into a state of protesting indignation at the 
whole nefarious proceedings. The attitudes of the creature would 
have made the fortune of a comedian. Mention of owls brought 
Mr. Duncan to a ghost story. Once, in a village in Cornwall, he 
heard affrighted villagers in the taproom telling of ghastly 
noises and a visible ghost proceeding at night from Squire Some- 
body’s tomb. All agreed that the old Squire’s ghost snored. He 
determined to investigate. From the tomb—an old-fashioned 
family-vault type—certainly the weirdest of noises were proceed- 
ing,—muffled groans and cries, and a distinctloudsnoring The 
mystery was explained when two barndoor owls came whirring 
out, protesting angrily at his disturbance. The owls had found 
a hole in the tomb, and were bringing up a family inside The 
groaning snoring sounds were their way of expressing anger 
when disturbed by nocturnal passers-by. So another ghost was 
laid. 
