44 NATURE AND THE CAMERA 



cealed it with branches. Then I attached fifty feet 

 of rubber tubing to the shutter and retreated to that 

 distance from the nest. After waiting for about half 

 an hour I crawled very quietly toward the nest, but 

 before coming within sight of it, I heard the bird 

 leave. Once more I retreated, and after waiting 

 another half-hour decided to press the bulb, making 

 the exposure on the chance of the bird being on the 

 nest. Whether she was I do not know, but I made 

 several chance exposures during the day, and when 

 I developed the plates there were many good pic- 

 tures of the nest, but only one showed the sitting 

 bird. 



For photographs of birds on their nests, the lens 

 used should have great length of focus, not much less 

 than twelve inches. The single combination of 

 almost any of the newer makes of convertible lenses 

 gives excellent results. The object in using a long- 

 focus lens is not only that a large image may be 

 obtained while the camera is at a considerable dis- 

 tance from the bird, but because the noise made by 

 releasing the shutter frequently causes the bird to 

 start, and of course the farther away the camera is 

 the less will be the chance of her hearing the 

 noise. The photographing of the sitting bird offers 

 the very best opportunity for the use of the telephoto 

 lens, but still it is better to use a good long-focus lens 

 where the bird is fairly tame, resorting to the tele- 



