XLV 

 Photographing Birds by Electricity 



ELECTRICITY and photography have been 

 used together successfully for many purposes. 

 In one branch of photography, that of bird life, 

 it is most useful. The patience of a Nature photo- 

 grapher is sorely tried at times ; but now, with 

 the electric release for instantaneous and time 

 shutters, which I introduced over a year ago, there 

 is no need for the operator to remain on the ground 

 with his apparatus. Without such aid of electricity 

 it would be almost impossible to photograph many 

 kinds of birds, some being so uncertain and quick 

 in their movements, that they are gone before it 

 is possible to expose a plate while following the 

 old method of using a length of pneumatic tubing 

 or string. Before I obtained my pictures of the little 

 grebe which appear in this volume, I tried to take 

 them with a pneumatic attachment to the shutter ; 

 but the birds were so rapid in their actions that 

 I found them not to show on the plates when I 

 developed them they had dived out of sight while 



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