INTRODUCTORY 3 
and the antiquated lens with rack and 
pinion complete. And yet I love that old 
lens well, for many a good portrait did it 
take, and serves its purpose, too, even to-day. 
And those wet plate negatives! Were they 
not grand! But now, I buy my dry plates 
ready made. My lens is of the rectilinear 
type, my camera racks out, and is of bellows 
make, with rising front, swing back, and 
ball and socket head to fix upon the legs, 
the whole packing away with half a dozen 
double slides into a bag that can be carried 
Fait a strap. upon the back, or if -you 
bicycle, can be conveniently fixed on the 
machine. A shutter, too, takes snapshots 
if you like, when the light is good enough. 
I have found, however, for myself, that, 
though the apparatus may be of the best 
and most expensive kind, it is, as with the 
rifle, bat and billiard cue, ‘the man behind ’ 
that does the trick. 
My friend Edward is a born naturalist, 
excelling in the art of finding birds’ nests. 
How he spots them always puzzles me. I 
