NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY 



BY R. W. SHUFELDT 



(WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR) 



NOT long ago the writer was in conversation with a 

 vigorous young man who had traveled very exten- 

 sively in South Africa and other parts of the 

 world ; his record achievement lay in the fact that he had 

 twice walked from Cape Town to the mouth of the Nile. 

 He had gathered a mass of anthropological notes upon 

 the natives he had come in contact with which, indeed, 

 had been his main object ; but beyond this he had made 

 no attempt to bring back any results obtained by his 

 camera, shedding light on what is to be found along 



Apart from such instances as might be furnished by 

 world travelers of other countries, no end could be sup- 

 plied from the records of our own people the members 

 of the American Forestry Association forming no ex- 

 ception; indeed, such records are annually increasing 

 since the extensive introduction of the automobile into 

 home and foreign travel. Many of these travelers com- 

 mand unlimited pecuniary means, together with all sorts 

 of facilities ; yet it never seems to occur to them what a 

 mass of information they might gather, which, if turned 



THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF SHELLS 



Figure I The larger shel. i, a fine exampie , the Sardonyx Helmet (C* Serosa,, which is found on our At.an.ic Coast, from North Carolina 



southward. This is a Kejr West specimen. ^~o"u 



other lines in the wonderful countries he had tramped 

 over. Especially was this true with respect to the fields 

 of zoology and botany. This is but a single example, 

 chosen to illustrate untold thousands of others similar 

 to it in all respects. One young man of the writer's own 

 family had passed over hundreds upon hundreds of 

 miles in the Orient in Japan and the East Indies, in the 

 heart of Africa, and across an utterly unknown part of 

 the continental island of Madagascar; but not a photo- 

 graph had he made of any of the rare and unknown 

 plants and animals he met with in these extensive 

 travels, nor any notes upon their habits. His Madagas- 

 car collection consisted of the tail of a common lemur! 



over to scientific descriptionists on their return, would 

 prove not only of inestimable value to various depart- 

 ments of science, but would greatly redound to the credit 

 of our country, and stimulate the advancement of civili- 

 zation at large. Many people of this class have justly 

 earned the name of "globe-trotters," and, indeed, they 

 have no ambition beyond it. They travel but to unload 

 their purses, for the sake of saying that they have been 

 here or there and thus have something attached to 

 themselves not experienced by others. Very frequently 

 these others have failed of such advantages through lack 

 of funds and opportunities; though had they enjoyed 

 them, they would have given something to the world 



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