The Photographer and the Tame Goose’s Egg 343 
some friends and we saw the white-breasted female leave it. We 
climbed to the summit and looked over. There, sure enough, 
only 15 ft. below us lay the pointed goose’s egg, but, as I had 
clearly foreseen, no second Eagle’s egg had been iaid. We had no 
rope with us, else I should have descended and put an end to the 
deception. 
As events turned out, this resulted in an unforeseen but 
supremely ludicrous episode. A few days after the last visit to 
Bonelli’s crag, on our return from a long expedition one evening, 
I was informed that two Englishmen had arrived and had installed 
themselves in the kitchen of a cottage adjoining my own which 
I had temporarily hired since I had more people staying with me 
than my small house could hold. On enquiry | found them to 
be a professional bird photographer and his assistant out on tour 
in quest of “copy,” who by some curious chance had come to 
stop at the identical spot where I have lived for so many years 
and which, it should be mentioned, is many hours from the nearest 
civilization. They assured me they were not collectors, in fact 
they did not take nests ‘‘only photographed them.” During their 
stay they made various expeditions in the neighbourhood and then 
disappeared as suddenly as they had come, as also by the way 
did sundry Neophrons’ and other eggs about the same time. 
This occurred in the month of April. In the following March 
I was as usual staying in the same place and had forgotten all 
about the incident when one day I received a copy of Country 
Life sent me by one of the party who had lowered me to the 
Bonelli’s nest the previous year and had seen me place the goose’s 
egg in it. In this number, to my intense amusement, as well as to 
that of all who were concerned in the expedition, there was a most 
graphic account of the identical nest of Bonelli’s Eagle we had 
robbed, describing how my photographing friend had obtained the 
egg from it! With the set purpose, apparently, to place on record 
