18 BULLETIN 4 and 5 



umbrella. The cord is long enough to serve as a guy rope. It 

 is well in such a blind to run belts of braid about the covering, 

 sewing them to it at intervals, thus forming loops into which 

 when desired, reeds or branches may be thrust. 



I have never used blinds myself in the little bird photogra- 

 phy that I have done. I have always placed the camera on a 

 tripod, focused it upon the nest of the bird to be photographed 

 and made the exposure by springing the shutter from a distance, 

 when the bird returned to the nest, by means of a string attached 

 to a simple trigger. This released a lever upon which a stretch- 

 ed rubber band was drawing. I have read of an arrangement 

 by which the shutter could be sprung by the attraction of the re- 

 lease lever of a magnet. The magnet was placed beneath the lever 

 and connected with a small battery by means of wire conductors. 

 Closing the circuit at the battery would cause the magnet to 

 draw the levers down, thus releasing the shutter. I have also 

 seen a picture of a camera equipped with a long rubber tube 

 with a bicycle pump for forcing air through it. 



Photographing birds is not at all easy work. It requires 

 time, patience and ingenuity, but the results attained are well 

 worth the effort. 



BIRD NOTES FROM ST. JOHNSBURY. 



BY INEZ A. HOWE. 



The summer of 1909 to me was the richest in rare bird 

 finds of any of the sixteen seasons that I have made a study of 

 these feathered friends of ours. 



It never was my good fortune to hear the song of the 

 White-crowned Sparrow, zonotrichia leucophijs^ until on May 

 17, 1909. I have watched the spring and autumn migrants for 

 many years but never saw or heard one sing before. In driving 

 from St, Johnsbury East to Concord on the date mentioned, 

 about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, I saw flocks of these birds in 

 company with Canadian Warblers, syhania canadensis^ when 

 suddenly a plump male White-crowned Sparrow alighted upon a 

 fence and poured forth his soul in an ecstasy of delight, only 

 rivaled by his cousin, the Song Sparrow. 



On May 29, while driving through St. Johnsbury Center, 

 I discovered perched on a telegraph wire a peculiar bluish bird 

 which regaled us with a sweet song unmistakably the song of a 



