1 76 Photography for the Sportsman Naturalist 



eggs in the nest." With all due respect to the 

 author, I must differ with him, for an experience 

 of some twenty-five years with the birds has 

 taught me that but one or two species will return 

 to their nests containing eggs when those nests 

 have been removed from their original site, and 

 many will desert if they have been in the slightest 

 way disturbed. Moreover, even after the young 

 are in the nest, it is not always that the old birds 

 will return to them after they have been removed 

 to a distance, and it must be some one well ac- 

 quainted with the habits of the bird who can suc- 

 cessfully avail himself of this method ; and, even 

 then, it must needs be attended with numerous 

 casualties. 



That the results justify the means I cannot 

 admit, for no matter how carefully the nest is set 

 up again the change in the character of its sur- 

 roundings is bound to show and produce a more 

 or less artificial effect. This is the one thing 

 above all others that should be avoided in nature 

 photography. 



I cannot help thinking the book of which I 

 speak a menace to our songsters ; for it will serve 

 to teach the uninitiated a method by which they 

 will imagine they may easily photograph the 

 birds, and it will take many nests full of dead 

 young to prove to them their error. In the 

 hands of an expert field ornithologist this method 



