CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



THOUGH the task is hardly possible, it is often 

 attempted to compare the sport with gun to that 

 with camera ; their standpoints are too far apart 

 to admit of direct comparison, yet we may consider 

 some of the factors or impulses common to both- 

 If we could analyse the different impulses which, 

 taken together, produce the desire, common to 

 men of all nations, to hunt and slay, not the least 

 of these would be found to be the natural exhilara- 

 tion produced by the exercise involved, the 

 satisfaction at the mastery of some creature by 

 the pitting of our powers against its, as well as 

 the gratification of the desire possessed from 

 infancy to obtain and examine any object beyond 

 our reach the natural curiosity of mankind. 



Now, regarding the first of these exercise 

 there appears to be spread about a wholly erroneous 

 idea that bird-photography consists in lying still 

 behind a bush. True, it may embrace little else* 

 and yet be productive of most valuable results; 



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