2 WILD LIFE AT HOME. 



which he succeeded in making sun pictures suffi- 

 ciently good and interesting to warrant him in 

 persevering. 



The only advice I have to give is that what- 

 ever you are going to buy, put your money into 

 a lens of good quality and a camera of strength 

 and stability rather than of elegance, for natural- 

 history photography demands the withstanding of 

 far greater strain and wear and tear than ordinary 

 studio work. 



Our camera, of which we give an illustration 

 on the opposite page, is a half-plate one, fitted 

 with a Dallmeyer stigmatic lens and an adjustable 

 miniature on the top, which is used as a sort of 

 view-finder when making studies of flying birds. 

 When fixed in position, and its focus has been set 

 exactly like its working companion beneath it, 

 both are racked out in the same ratio by the 

 screw dominating the larger apparatus, which, when 

 charged with a slide and stopped down according 

 to the requirements of light and speed of exposure, 

 needs no further attention. When the combina- 

 tion is in use the photographer focusses with his 

 right hand, and holding the air-ball or reservoir 

 of his pneumatic tube in his left, squeezes it 

 quickly and firmly, directly he has achieved a 

 sufficiently clear and strong definition of his object, 

 upon the ground-glass of the miniature camera. 



It frequently happens, however, when trying to 

 photograph flying birds, such as gannets, that they 



