THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS IN THEIR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT. 



BY JACOB REIGHARD, 

 Professor of Zoology, University of Michigan. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Many things have contributed in recent years to extend the use of photography 

 into fields of natural history not previously occupied by it. Dry plates and films 

 have been made more rapid and, with the advent of the nonhalation and orthochro- 

 matic sorts, have been adapted to every use; with new sorts of optical glass it has 

 been possible to construct photographic lenses of great speed; cameras and acces- 

 sories have been made portable and suited to a variety of needs. As a result we 

 find in scientific publications, as well as in more popular books and periodicals, 

 excellent photographs of living animals and plants in their natural environment. 

 Students and lovers of birds, field naturalists and hunters of big game have all 

 contributed their part. Birds have been photographed on the wing and while 

 engaged in their domestic duties, on the nest in almost inaccessible high trees, 

 on mountain crags, and on the faces of cliffs. Mammals have been photographed 

 in nature under a great variety of conditions. Reptiles, amphibians, insects 

 everv variety of terrestrial animal has been pictured by the lens. 



Quite in contrast has been the limited use of photography for aquatic organisms. 

 Shufeldt (1898), Dugmore (Jordan & Evermann, 1902), Saville-Kent (1893), Fabre- 

 Domergue (1898), have from time to time succeeded in making excellent photo- 

 graphs of animals in aquaria under more or less artificial conditions, but the work 

 has been carried scarcely beyond this (see Boutan, 1893, 1898, 1898a, 1900, and 

 Rudaux, 1908). The present paper deals rather with the photography of aquatic 

 organisms, not merely in their native element, but in their native environment and 

 under normal conditions. It attempts to show how they may be photographed, 

 not by taking them from their native haunts and placing them in artificial containers, 

 but by carrying the camera into the field. The methods described make it possible 

 to do in some measure for aquatic animals what has been done for birds and other 

 terrestrial forms. 



PRINCIPLES OF PHOTOGRAPHY OF SUBMERGED OBJECTS. 



In air the naturalist can by one method or another photograph what he sees. 

 When he looks into clear water he may see much that it seems possible to photo- 

 graph. If the surface is disturbed objects beneath it appear distorted and waver- 

 ing, but if the surface is smooth they may appear as sharp and steady as though 



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