THE APPEAL OF THE SPORT 



discovery, made not many years ago, banishes all pos- 

 sible doubt. This was the discovery that photography 

 could be employed in bird study with splendid suc- 

 cess. At once this gave to the bird student a weapon, 

 an implement, putting him in the class of sportsmen. 

 Nearly everyone now knows about this new thing 

 which is, indeed, a sport by itself, "hunting with the 

 camera." This is not confined to any one department 

 of natural history, but is the capture upon a photo- 

 graphic plate of the image of any wild living creature 

 mammal, bird, fish, or even insect. Birds offer special 

 inducements for this pursuit, as they are far more 

 numerous than the wild mammals. Moreover, fish 

 can seldom be photographed save in captivity, and 

 insects are small and not popular. 



Studying bird and animal life with the camera cer- 

 tainly is a splendid sport. It destroys no Me, yet yields 

 results far superior to those of gun and flesh-pot in our 

 stage of civilization where we need not shoot to eat. 

 How often nowadays one reads the admission of some 

 hunter who comes close upon some fine game, that he 

 wished he had had a camera instead of his gun. To 

 shoot successfully with the camera requires far more 

 skill, nerve, patience, brain-power, than with the gun, 

 and yet is not hard enough to be impracticable. In 

 the highest essentials of sport, to my mind, the camera 

 stands far ahead of the gun. 



My boy friend, of course, has caught the fever, and 

 has a lightly-built long-focus camera, using a 4x5 inch 



