Retriever and Crane's Nest 119 
Then after mounting again, by reining my horse round and taking 
a snapshot, I was enabled to get a general view of the nest and 
vast expanse of reeds beyond. 
In the first picture given the low line of hills in the middle 
distance surmounted by a few trees indicates the point of departure 
whence I made my final advance on the nest, the outline of the 
sierra beyond showing in the far distance. Having accomplished 
this, | again dismounted and endeavoured to take a picture at closer 
range; the perpetual movement of the reeds made this a trouble- 
some matter, and being now much lower down naturally aggravated 
the difficulties. I was, however, so far successful as to be able 
to show the pool with the nest in the middle of it, my horizon 
being now limited by the masses of waving reeds. 
Lastly, I detached my tripod stand from the saddle and, 
mounting my camera on it set to work to take photographs of 
the eggs at closer quarters. It was whilst thus engaged that the 
Crane’s eggs had a narrow escape from destruction. So absorbed 
had I been in watching the movements of the birds and_ subse- 
quently in riding their line and in photographing, that I had 
entirely forgotten the existence of my faithful retriever, ‘‘ Sweep,” 
who had not only followed me for hours across the marshes, but 
for a considerable time had been forcing his way through the 
dense reeds, often in water up to his shoulders, amid legions of 
leeches. 
It was whilst looking into the finder of my camera that | 
suddenly became aware of a black object moving among the 
adjacent reeds and glancing up, I was horrified to see the dog 
scrambling into the big nest with the obvious determination of 
obtaining a drier billet! A frantic shout, ‘‘ Drop!” caused the poor 
beast to recoil and drop on his haunches on the half-submerged 
portion of the nest where he sat shivering in the water in mute 
protest at my forgetfulness. The camera being directed on the 
