WOOD AND WASTE 29 



On November 2nd we experienced for 

 about the seventieth time seven how many a 

 slip there is between cup and lip in this 

 kind of photographic work. 



Often and often have I gently driven 

 for amusement or to show to friends some 

 family of Mountain Ducks up oir down 

 stream to some convenient crossing or open 

 reach. We did this on the 2nd, quite easily 

 driving them down the creek and sweeping 

 them from pool to pool till the selected spot 

 was reached. Then, while the camera was 

 being adjusted, an eye was kept on the 

 parent birds, and we were satisfied from 

 time to time with glimpses of them half 

 hidden in the bastard flax that drooped into 

 the stream. Alas! however, when all Avas 

 complete, the young were gone, vanished! 

 We never again saw them, and the parents 

 only hung about the spot till they knew 

 their brood was perfectly safe, when they, 

 too, decamped. 



Later, an examination of the opposite 

 river bank, where we had forced the ducks to 

 pause, proved that they had been blocked 

 by ill luck exactly at one of their bank 



