PLATE I 

 HERON. A rdea cinerea 



March 2$t/t, 1893. Crossed the Lake of Monteith with my brother to try and 

 get some photographs of the Herons' nests in the Big Wood. The day was 

 dull and unpromising, but we hoped it would clear by the afternoon. As 

 we came through the wood where the Heronry was we heard the old Herons 

 leaving their perches and croaking the alarm. We selected a nest for our first 

 attempt, with a very tall tree growing quite close to the one it was in ; I 

 sent my brother on ahead to break off the rotten branches, while I followed 

 with the camera ; after a great deal of trouble we succeeded in getting up to 

 the top, and got an iron rod clamped round the trunk of the tree and the 

 camera screwed on to it. 



From this point we had a splendid view of the nest with its four pale 

 blue eggs; it was slightly below us, and was one of the old nests which 

 had been repaired year after year, and must have been composed of nearly a 

 cartload of sticks. After waiting a short time we got a little sunshine and 

 secured two very fair photographs of the nest. 



We got carefully down again and went over to another tree, and started 

 preparations there ; it was far worse getting up the second tree than it had 

 been to climb the first, for the lower half of it was almost unclimbable 

 owing to the sharp spikes of broken branches. However, we got up all right 

 at last ; rather hot and much scratched, but the camera was all safe. We 

 found when we got near the top that it was not nearly so high as the one in 

 which the nest was, but by getting up singly till it got dangerously thin 

 we could just look into the nest. There are few places to set up one's 

 camera in which are so unsatisfactory as the shaky top of a thin spruce-fir, 

 and I had not been up two minutes when I dropped my camera screw! Of 

 course it went to the ground. I had to go down and hunt for it, and found 

 it after a short search. The branches were becoming fewer with each journey, 

 but I had no camera to bother me and I soon got up, my brother shouting 

 out to ' Hurry up ' as the sun was coming out. I managed up at last and got 



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