PHOTOGRAPHY OF MAMMALS AND BIRDS. 33 



unexplained cause, there remains sufficient actinic 

 power in the light immediately after sundown to enable 

 one to make a really fast exposure. The opposite 

 phenomenon is sometimes observed. Clouds, for in- 

 stance, may be secured without special precautions on an 

 original negative, when such clouds ought, according 

 to one's past experience, to be hopelessly over-exposed. 

 The writer still cherishes the hope of obtaining a picture 

 of the bustling activity of a rabbit-warren under some 

 such exceptionally favourable conditions. Failing this 

 good fortune, the only plan is to secure the rabbit 

 when young and to tame it, and so we find ourselves 

 reduced to photography by control. 



Bats present no particular difficulty to the camera, 

 for they are easily obtained, easily handled, and, if not 

 thoroughly awakened, steady sitters. The specimen 

 figured, a pipistrelle, was one of several who selected the 

 dinner hour during the recent hot summer to enter the 

 room by an open window. He was secured in a butterfly 

 net, and spent the remainder of the night in a Bryant and 

 May's matchbox. Morning found him in such a state of 

 somnolency that several pictures were secured before 

 he was fairly awake, including, of course, the typical 

 head-downwards attitude. The one reproduced is the 

 last of the series, and has been selected chiefly on 

 account of its showing the creature's ears and the 

 powerful claws which terminate the thumbs. The surly 

 expression, though the rule rather than the exception 

 with bats, is probably accentuated by the fact that his 

 aim in life just previously was to retire in the darkness 



