4 PHOTOGRAPHY FOR BIRD-LOVERS. 



Some Photographic Knowledge Required. 



And now it will be well to consider the status 

 of those for whom this book is primarily intended. 

 It may be said at once that it is not destined to 

 serve as a text-book of photography, but rather 

 as a manual for the application of that art to a 

 given purpose that of bird-photography in its 

 widest sense. This being so, it is taken for granted 

 that the reader has at least mastered the rudiments 

 of camera-craft, and can, with a fair degree of 

 certainty, make a respectable negative of a simple 

 subject ; that he has, in short, struggled through 

 the early technique of exposure, development, 

 and printing. But should the mysteries of these 

 processes still present difficulties, he is advised to 

 consult one of the legion of hand-books specially 

 devoted to these subjects, for these are purely 

 photographic matters, and except in special form 

 are quite outside the scope of this work. 



There is a plain and, to the impatient, a rather 

 ugly fact that must be faced, so we had better 

 settle it at once. 



To attempt bird or any other such applied 

 form of photography before the general principles 

 and practice of the art are mastered, is simply to 

 retard progress and court failure. It is, in fact, 

 trying to run before walking has been accomplished, 

 and nowhere is this cart-before-the-horse method 



