nearest bushes, fifteen yards away, we use the telephoto lens. 
Then, upon my knees, head covered with the focus-cloth, 
looking intently into the hood of the reflex camera and 
watching the image of the birds on the ground glass, keeping 
good focus upon them as I advance, I creep nearer and nearer. 
The movement is so gradual, and the object so nondescript, 
that they are not alarmed. At length I am very near, and 
ON LONELY BIRD KEY 97 
hooked-billed, long-winged pirates. Though at times un¬ 
friendly, the similarity of their dark plumages — perhaps 
— gives them now a sense of having some things, after all, 
in common, and they sit together as though ever the best 
of friends. The big fellows are not over-tame, so from the 
NODDIES, “the male STANDS BESIDE HIS MATE AS SHE BROODS” 
