BIRD STUDY NOTES 



By FRED L. CHARLES 



When the final postmortem is held over the nature faker, 

 one of the most interesting bits of evidence brought to light 

 will be the photographic ingenuity of this enterprising indi- 

 vidual. Though his ways cannot be called dark, his tricks are 

 many, and when to his wiles is added the smooth-tongued 

 story of the 

 popular lecturer, 

 the unsuspecting 

 layman usually 

 accepts the pho- 

 tograph as gen- 

 uine. 



This great 

 blue heron (oft- 

 en passing un- 

 der the name of 

 blue crane ) 

 stands a p p a r- 

 ently alert i n 



a thicket of un- Mi^jMf M ^Mfflt i^ L i i M S ^ i ( ^\fSM\ r '^ ' 



derbrush. In 

 reality i t is a 

 ''stufifed" bird, 

 carried into the 

 garden of a city 

 home. The store 

 building which 

 loomed so plain- 

 ly in the back- 

 ground, is elimi- 

 nated from the 



print. Twinkle, the house cat, laps milk from a saucer — in the 

 original photograph — the idea being to picture a ''happy fam- 

 ily". On second thought the photograph of the bird alone 

 was deemed more desirable, and in this illustration the cat has 

 been "retouched". (A worthy example, this, when choos- 

 ing between bird and cat.) The writer presents this illustra- 

 tion for the purpose of throwing teachers on their guard when 

 confronted by books, charts and ''views" of a character fre- 

 quently offered for sale. The writer has known zealous na- 

 ture "workers" to obtain beautiful photographs of insects feed- 



