Gbe Marbler 



ii 



ROCK WREN NEST IN POT HOLE OE VERTICAL WALL 



sible to make a sudden rush, when the parent bird returned with the food; 

 flushing it, thus, but a few feet away. A tragic element entered the photo- 

 graphing of this nest: Desirous of catching the parent birds at home and lit- 

 tle dreaming of the possibility of any danger to the young that might not 

 readily be seen, the bulb-presser left the camera in commission, for a time. 

 Returning, a half-hour later, he found the parent Rock Wrens absent still; 

 while, as he lifted up the protecting rock, there lay revealed a horrid coil of 

 a young adder; which was leisurely swallowing the second of the three week- 

 old young that had lain in the neat nest of rootlets. Humanity mastered 

 any possible latent zeal for "material" in the way of startling negatives. A 

 grab by the tail and the serpent disgorged the young that was yet in sight; 

 a crunch of the heel and the beautiful serpent was dead. But so likewise, 

 was the one young which had become already, "en gastri": "in the stom- 

 ach"; the old Greeks use to say, anent pregnacy. Usually, at such pathetic 

 outcome of brutal human stupidity I would have been actually sorry: as it 

 was, I could only bite my lips until the blood came. But the two remain- 

 ing young made-a-live of it. I saw them, later, hearty, hungry, vociferous. 

 Nevertheless, nowadays, when I leave a set-up camera to disarm timorous 

 birds I leave with it a lieutenant, armed with a gatling gun. By Mid-June 



