29^ 



NA TURE 



[July 30, 1908 



VILD-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY IN AMERICA. 



I^HE greater part of the June issue of the National 

 Geographic Magazine is occupied by a lavishly 

 illustrated article by the Hon. E. Shiras (who claims, 

 we believe, to be the pioneer in 

 flashlight photography) entitled ?■■-■ .., 

 " One Season's Game-bag with the 

 Camera." The author is convinced 

 that photographing big game in ; 

 their native wilds is in a fair way 

 to supersede shooting them, al- ;' 

 though we are fain to confess that 

 so far as this country is concerned 

 we fail to see marked, if any, signs 

 of the supposed impending change. 

 The suggestion of Mr. Shiras that 

 " one can buy at half the cost [of 

 shooting the animals] the skins or 

 horns that later may adorn the 

 home as a result of the hunting- 

 trip " is most assuredly one that 

 will not appeal to the present-day 

 British sportsman. 



Apart from all this, the author 

 is to be heartily congratulated on 

 the pictorial results of the three 

 trips upon which the article before 

 us is based. These three trips 

 comprised one in April to an 

 isolated coral-reef in the Bahama 

 group tenanted by large breeding colonies of " man- 

 of-war birds" and "boobies"; a second to 

 New Brunswick in search of moose and deer, 

 and later on to Newfoundland for caribou ; and 



colony, together with individual boobies incubating 

 (herewith reproduced), and of man-of-war birds on the 

 wing as well as of their callow young. It appears 

 that the former birds are compelled to protect their 



.- ri.-; 7i;i^a.-..v 



.' .^..^ti^MMMlcuMurfid 



Fig. I. — " Boobies " protecting their young from the sun, and a single bird 

 incubating. From the PJationai Geographic ^lagazinc. 



a third to Florida for brown pelicans and other local 

 birds. The majority of the photographs were obtained 

 on Kay Verde, as the aforesaid coral-reef is called, 

 and comprise some excellent pictures of the booby 



NO. 2022, VOL. 78] 



Fig. 2. — Caribou Stag with Symtnetrical Horns. Fhotographed at a distance of 8 feet. From the 

 Aatio/ial Geographic Magazine. 



young from the fierce rays of the sun by brooding 

 them with their wings. The photographs of flocks 

 of pelicans on the wing come almost as a revelation, 

 although in some instances the birds in the fore- 

 ground are unavoidably more or less blurred. The 

 picture of something like a thousand young peli- 

 cans disporting themselves at the water's edge is 

 another calculated to make the bird-lover long for a 

 glimpse of such a wondrous scene. Mr. Shiras was 

 equally successful in " snap-shotting," either by flash- 

 light or in daylight, moose in the forest and caribou 

 swimming in the lakes, one of the pictures of the 

 latter (Fig. 2) showing most admirably the white 

 collar distinctive of full-grown stags. 



A CONTRIBUTION TO THE INDIGO 

 QUESTION.' 



A DECADE has elapsed since the chemical fac- 

 tories of Germany began to enter seriously 

 into competition with plant indigo, and the gradual 

 displacement of the latter by the synthetical product 

 has from time to time been recorded in these columns. 

 The writer of this notice was invited in 1900 to make 

 known in this country the chemical history of this 

 new development of applied science, and in a paper 

 read before the Society of Arts the following year, 

 after describing the various synthetical processes then 

 available, attention was directed to the extraordinary 

 want of skilled scientific supervision which had, down 

 to that period, marked the cultivation of the plant 

 and the processes of extraction carried on in India. 

 In the year 1902 Mr. Bloxam was appointed to the 

 research station of Dalsingh Serai, having associated 

 with him Mr. H. M. Leake as biologist and Mr. 

 R. S. Finlow as assistant chemist. Work was carried 

 on in India by this staff until the sprine of 1904, 

 when Messrs. Bloxam and Leake returned to England. 



1 Report to the Government of India, containing an Account of the 

 Research Work on Indigo performed in the University of Leeds, 1905-7. 

 By W. Popplewell Bloxam. with the assistance of S. H. Wood, I. Q. 

 Orchardson, R. Gaunt, and F. Thomas ; and under the general supervision 

 of Mr. A. G. Perkin, F.R.S , of the University of Leeds. (Published by 

 Order of His Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council.) 



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