354 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



Such wild animals as Rabbits, Hedgehogs, and 

 Voles require very patient waiting for, with the 

 camera well hidden. We cover ours with a green 

 focussing cloth, which has each of its four corners 

 weighted with gunshot to prevent it from flapping 

 in a breeze, and then hide the front with bushes, 

 taking care, however, that no drooping leaf stands 

 a chance of interposing itself between the lens and 

 the object to be photographed. My brother then 

 lies up at a convenient distance with the binoculars, 

 and waits until the object he desires to photograph 

 comes within the field of focus, and exposes his 

 plate by a squeeze of the air-ball at the end of 

 the pneumatic tube controlling his silent shutter. 



Birds on their nests feeding their young, and 

 at rest in their natural haunts, are photographed 

 in a similar manner. 



The great secret of all field work is the power to 

 keep absolutely still for a prolonged period of 

 time. I have stood like a statue in a perfectly 

 exposed place beside a small cattle pond for half 

 an hour on a calm summer's evening, and had five 

 Rabbits, four Voles, and two or three common 

 Brown Rats within a dozen yards of me fighting, 

 feeding, swimming, and playing with the utmost 

 unconcern, until I stirred, when they all disappeared 

 as if by magic. My brother waited a whole day 

 for the picture of the Vole on page 351, and 

 so confiding did the little animal become towards 

 evening that it hopped up to him and smelt his 

 boots, and even hid itself beneath his legs, as he 

 sat with his knees drawn up in a high clump of 

 thistles, upon the approach of a man who happened 

 to be passing the pond in the banks of which it 

 lived. Most birds are as frightened of the Cyclops- 

 looking lens of a camera as they are of a human 



