228 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



even a decent photograph of a tiling so full of 

 life and movement as a bird, and so anxious was 

 my brother not to miss a favourable gleam of 

 light through the surrounding tree tops during the 

 presence of the Jay at her nest, that in spite of 

 the gnats he would not leave his post, and I had to 

 go in search of some lunch for him. He succeeded 

 in making a series of studies, a reproduction of 

 one of which is given on p. 225. It is the most 

 dearly bought picture in this book, for in addition 

 to the torture endured in procuring it, my brother 

 was unable to sleep the two following nights from 

 the recurrent irritation in his hands and face, 

 which swelled to such an alarming extent that he 

 was only able to look out of two little holes in the 

 latter, and was quite unable to close the fingers of 

 the former. Our family doctor pronounced his case 

 to be a bad attack of blood poisoning, but was 

 unable to ascribe it entirely to the stings of the 

 insects. 



We found two other Jays' nests near the same 

 place, containing eggs, and in an open part of the 

 wood fell in with a male Moorhen, which had by a 

 remarkable accident so entangled himself amongst 

 some dead branches carelessly thrown into a pond 

 as to be quite unable to move until we released 

 him, when he flew away in a great hurry. 



Pied Wagtails sometimes have a fancy for odd 

 situations in which to build their nests. Last spring 

 a friend of ours discovered one inside an old pail, 

 which was lying upside down in a corner of his 

 garden. It contained young ones, and the parent 

 birds, which both assisted in feeding them, entered 

 and left through a hole in the bottom of the disused 

 vessel. My brother succeeded in taking a photo- 

 graph of one of them in the act of entering with 



