PUEFACE. h 



We enjoy the gratification of having sent hosts 

 of amateur photographers into the fields to study 

 wild life for themselves, and hail with extreme 

 pleasure their efforts towards the attainment of pic- 

 torial truth and accuracy. In this book we tel] 

 exactly and candidly how we work, and can only 

 hope that the results we are able to show will still 

 further stimulate a desire amongst those to whom 

 we appeal to become better acquainted with the 

 birds and beasts of our land. 



Of course, we cannot hope to please everybody. 

 Men who love the ideal and men who centre their 

 affections upon absolute truth do not sit harmo- 

 niously at meat together. Whilst regretting our 

 inability to meet the former entirely, we can say 

 that we have always striven to make our illus- 

 trations as picturesque as possible; but a necessity 

 of our mission has been to render effect subordinate 

 to accuracy, and the value of this will, I think, be 

 admitted upon comparing my brother's photograph 

 of a Fulmar Petrel with any picture of the bird in 

 existence made by a pencil. 



Whilst the general public will, we hope, appre- 

 ciate our efforts and the results we have obtained, 

 the field naturalist and the practical photographer 

 alone are in a position to understand the true 

 character of our difficulties. The man who essays 

 the task of photographing a wild bird in its native 

 haunts, for instance, soon begins to think that, if 

 he has not succeeded in solving the mystery of 

 perpetual motion, he has discovered the creature 



