200 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



Bullfinches sit very closely, as may be judged 

 from the vignette on the opposite page, which has 

 been made direct from the original photograph. 

 Gray Wagtails are also faithful birds in this respect. 

 In the beginning of June, 1895, I found the nest 

 of one of these birds in a little ghyll in Westmor- 

 land, and an illustration of it appeared in my work 

 on "British Birds' Nests." At the end of the 

 same month of the present year we revisited the 

 place, and found the old nest of 1895 still intact, 

 one which had been used in 1896 a yard or two 

 higher up the stream, and a new one, upon which 

 the bird was then sitting, a few feet higher still. 

 The nest was too far back in a dark horizontal 

 fissure in the limestone rock to allow us to photo- 

 graph the bird on it, so we put her off, and, drawing 

 it a few inches out, went away. As she did not 

 appear to resent our interference with her nest, we 

 pulled it a bit further out still the next day, and 

 on the third reflected sufficient light upon her by 

 the aid of a looking-glass to enable the accompany- 

 ing picture to be made. This done, we put it back 

 in its original position, and the Wagtail ultimately 

 hatched her eggs and reared five young ones. 



Early in the morning of the day on which the 

 Queen celebrated her Diamond Jubilee we started 

 out to photograph a Red-backed Shrike sitting on 

 her nest. She was much shyer than we anticipated, 

 but after a patient wait of four and a half hours we 

 succeeded in making the study on p. 203 by hiding 

 the camera and photographer, and signalling to the 

 latter by a low whistle when the bird was seen, 

 with a field-glass, to go to her nest. It is of 

 interest to us from the fact that the photograph 

 was taken just as her Majesty left Buckingham 

 Palace on her historic procession. 



