NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY 



85 



Le Souef, Director of the Zoological Gardens of Mel- 

 bourne, sent the writer a dried specimen of that most 

 remarkable lizard of Australia known as the Moloch or 

 Mountain Devil. It had been dried in a most natural 

 attitude, after having been taken out of the alcohol where- 

 in it had been kept for many years.- So natural was its 

 pose, that the making of a photograph was at once sug- 

 gested, and it is here reproduced in Figure 9 as an 

 admirable example of what can be done with a dried 

 specimen of an interesting lizard from far-off Australia. 

 Of course, living lizards make much better pictures, but 

 some of them are by no means easy subjects to photo- 

 graph. When sluggish and gentle, as the foreign speci- 

 men here shown in Figure 12, the difficulties to be en- 

 countered are by no means great; and after one becomes 



A GROUND SQUIRREL 



Figure 15. We have here a photograph of a dead animal of no great 

 size. Had the specimen been a rare one or an undescribed species, 

 such a photograph would be of the greatest use and value to science. 

 It exhibits nearly all the external characters of the animal as pelage, 

 tail, feet and general form, together with the type of head and its 

 general parts. 



a little expert, the making of a negative is but a matter 

 of fifteen or twenty minutes. Some travelers prefer to 

 pack their exposed films in a suitable box, and develop 

 them on their return to civilization ; but this, however, is 

 frequently a dangerous practice, and reminds one of a 



distinguished traveler who spent three years in unex- 

 plored Africa. He had upwards of 300 exposed films 

 of localities, natives, animals, etc., when he returned to 

 Berlin, where the custom officers, although implored to 

 desist, opened them all in a light room "to make sure 

 that there was no smuggling going on !" 



In Figure 11 is presented a photograph of a living 

 lizard; it is taken in a very natural pose on a light- 



SOUTH AMERICAN MARMOSET 



Figure 16. Dead animals may often be photographed in such attitudes 

 as to simulate the living species. Here is a good example of such a 

 feat. The Marmoset is one of a group of small mammals related to 

 the monkeys. 



colored rock, and distinctly shows nearly all of its 

 characters, particularly the form, markings, feet and 

 proportions. As a rule, such pictures can only be secured 

 indoors under favorable conditions, as these lizards are 

 very timid, easily startled, and extremely difficult to 

 recover if they once get away. Other forms, like some 

 of the iguanas, are quite the reverse of all this, and offer 

 no special difficulty to the explorer. 



When we come to birds, the chances are that the world 

 traveler will not secure many photographs of them, al- 

 though an attempt should be made to do so whenever a 

 good opportunity presents itself. Many seafowl are 

 readily photographed, as they exhibit but little fear of 

 man in countries rarely visited. And it must be re- 

 membered that excellent enlargements are easily made 



