76 NATURE AND THE CAMERA 



follow it out in all cases. It becomes a habit, so that 

 after a time we do it automatically. 



The question of a camera for this branch of work 

 is perhaps more important than in any other. A 

 tripod camera is in nearly all cases out of the ques- 

 tion, except for small animals. An ordinary hand- 

 camera has the objection that one has to guess at the 

 focus, a most difficult thing to do ; and most hand- 

 cameras are made to use a short-focus lens, which in 

 wild-animal work is utterly useless. From my own 

 experience the graflex camera seems the one best 

 fitted to the work ; its great length of bellows will 

 allow the use of the hand-camera telephoto lens, 

 which has a magnification of 3^ diameters. Armed 

 with such an instrument, almost any kind of work 

 may be done, and with the least possible difficulty 

 and the greatest possible chance of success. It is 

 perhaps needless to say that no outfit is complete 

 without a telephoto lens. For animal work the kind 

 known as the hand-camera one (such as that made 

 by Bausch & Lomb) is the best; it only magnifies 

 3J^ diameters, but that is as much as can safely be 

 risked for hand-camera work or when the objects 

 are constantly moving. With a plastigmat fitted 

 with one of these telephoto lens I have made expo- 

 sures of one hundredth of a second on live animals 

 in motion, and obtained very fair results. This was 

 on a bright day, of course; in cloudy weather one 



