Photographing Birds and their Young 167 



unaffected by all my blandishments and I have 

 never been able to obtain any pictures of them. 

 Among these are the yellow-breasted chat and 

 the blackbird, both of which I have tried to 

 photograph time and again, and have spent long, 

 discouraging hours in the vain hope of obtaining 

 the pictures which I desired of them. Once a 

 chat came to her nest of young upon which my 

 camera was focussed, but only to touch it and 

 immediately leave ; and, although I pressed the 

 bulb, I was not quick enough, and the resulting 

 picture showed no sign of the old bird. 



However, these are the disappointments to 

 which we will find that we must continually sub- 

 mit, and we must have the patience to bear them 

 without becoming discouraged. Often have I 

 spent an entire clay in the endeavor to photo- 

 graph some particularly intractable bird, with 

 absolutely no success, and have been forced to 

 return home in the evening with no results to 

 show, but determined to photograph that same 

 bird at some future time if such a thing were 

 possible. Of course young birds, before they are 

 able to fly, are much more easily photographed 

 than are the old ones, for they cannot escape the 

 evil eye of the lens by flight. So these are the 

 ones upon which the would-be bird photographer 

 should first experiment. He will find that he has 

 his work cut out for him, however, for, although 



