WHAT I HAVE DONE WITH BIRDS 



YOUNG TANAGER 



with food and water beneath. As I write 

 they are six weeks old. Bath water is still 

 furnished them, but they have not been 

 fed for ten days. Both of them are fly- 

 ing about the orchard, clean, bright, 

 beautiful birds. I was most anxious to 

 keep them, the Grosbeak especially. It 

 would have made a precious pet, but the 

 laws of my state prohibit the caging of 

 a song-bird, so I gradually had to ac- 

 custom them to become self-supporting, 

 take their pictures, and let them go. 



While working among and about birds in the nesting season I 

 have secured these intimate studies and experiences. At any other 

 time, when they are the wild, shy, free creatures of all outdoors, a 

 preconceived study of them is the merest chance, and a stray snap 

 shot, luck pure and simple. This, of course, refers to songsters. 

 With coast and tropical birds that live in flocks it is different. 



But don't let any one imagine that because he knows his nat- 

 tural history well, he knows anything about the camera. That is 

 a separate and distinct study. You might as well ask a great 

 surgeon to do X-ray work without knowing how, as to ask a 



scientist to judge of a 

 natural-history photog- 

 rapher's work. It is 

 possible to locate a f a- 

 forite stump and pho- 

 tograph one or a pair 

 of Kingfishers in the 

 act of diving for food. 

 It is possible by his 



HEN'S NEST CONTAINING EGG OF CHICKEN-HAWK drOppingS tO locate Si 



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