THE YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO 



over I realized in bitterness that it was a large mistake to go early 

 and try to approach her so soon after she had been from the nest 

 for her morning exercise. Late that afternoon I went back again. 

 The light was directly in the face of the lens in case I got a chance 

 to set up a camera, but I wanted to accustom her to the process. 



It seemed to me I took an age to go from the well to a spot 

 as close to the nest as possible. I never wanted to make a study of 

 a bird worse, and so worked in greater trepidation, and with 

 greater caution than I ever before used on any subject. That 

 shy, slipping, deep wood thing if I only could get her! She let 

 me set up the camera, and focus on her, so I shaded the lens, made 

 a time exposure and left without causing her to desert. That 

 night I made up lost sleep, for I felt that "I had the hang of it 

 now and could do it again." 



Next morning, instead of going early, I waited until eleven 

 o'clock, which was as late as I dared risk the light; then with the 

 same deliberation and caution I approached her again and made 

 three exposures, each time slipping the camera a little nearer. 

 She sat, as brooding tree birds always do, on the point of her 

 breast. Her tail was toward the lens and her head at the farthest 

 side of the nest. That was not a position I would have chosen, 

 but it was a very good omen that she would stay when she was 

 headed toward the thicket. Had she brooded facing me, she 

 would have been compelled to make an impulse in my direction 

 in order to reach the deep shrubbery, and she would not have liked 

 to do that. 



The next morning I went an hour earlier, moved up to ten 

 feet, and exposed two more plates in the same attitude. The fol- 

 lowing morning she was in a beautiful position, sidewise toward 

 the lens, showing her outline from beak to tip in one elegant 

 sweep, her black bill, her red-rimmed eye, and the exquisite shad- 

 ings of her silvery throat and the bronze of her back and wings. 



157 



