GREAT HORNED OWLS 
321 
do this, but she did not. Then everything seemed to go 
wrong ; the apparatus was not in perfect order, my footing 
w'as precarious, and the wind was blowing. For over an hour 
I fussed with the screw-bolt, clamps, and camera. At last it 
was fixed ; I made four exposures, and should have descended 
from the tree without alarming her had I not maintained 
a shouted conversation with my companion who had been 
hiding at a distance, which finally caused her to fly and reveal 
her eggs. The vigil in the dark-room brought four good 
pictures. But the sun had so glanced on the owl’s back as to 
make her appear almost white, and I decided that on an 
overcast day I could do better work. So I made another 
trip with a companion, walking boldly up with him to the 
tree, climbing, and at my leisure securing a splendid series 
of pictures. When I wanted to photograph the eggs, my 
friend had to throw stones quite a while before the owl would 
fly. 
From time to time I visited the nest again. The young 
were safely hatched in the early part of April. From now on 
the old bird became more and more shy, until one could not 
approach anywhere near her. On the eighteenth of the 
month, when the downy owlets were strong enough to sit 
up, I photographed them. It was a windy day, when furious 
gusts from the northwest made the tree on wTich I was bend 
like a reed, and obliged me to hug it, and hang on for dear 
life. I also succeeded in photographing the old owl several 
times, as she returned to her young, by screwing the camera 
up in a tree, attaching a two hundred-yard spool of black 
linen thread to the shutter, and from my place of conceal¬ 
ment farther up the mountain, lying behind a fallen trunk 
for nearly an hour at a time, pulling the end of the thread, 
as the owl returned to her accustomed branch before entering 
the nest. 
