WHITETHROATS CLEVER DODGES 109 



develop them, and found she had moved in every 

 instance. After waiting another hour I was suc- 

 cessful in obtaining a good picture of the hen. 



It may be noticed, that many birds always sit in 

 the same position on their eggs ; the Whitethroat 

 was always facing the same direction, and nearly 

 four hours after I had exposed the plate I took 

 another photograph to see what the difference 

 would be, and purposely drove the bird off the nest 

 so as to see whether she would sit in a different 

 posture, in the two photographs. The only thing 

 to show that the successive pictures were printed 

 from different negatives, was, that the beak in one 

 was raised a fraction higher than in the other ; but 

 apart from this, the bird was in exactly the same 

 posture on each occasion. 



They will use many clever dodges to allure 

 away an enemy. One day as I was passing 

 a bush in which a Whitethroat had built, the 

 sitting bird fluttered off and lay on the ground, 

 but seeing at once that it was shamming, I went 

 nearer to see what would be the result. This 

 caused the bird to get more excited, so that I 

 followed^ her as she fluttered along the ground 

 with one wing hanging limp and just keeping in 

 front of me. When about twenty yards had been 

 passed over in this way, she flew into a tree, and 



