ROSY-BILLED DUCK— 
THE two photographs reproduced at the top of 
Rosy-Billed this page show this well-shaped 
Duck of bird sitting and with her brood 
SOUND oO? nnae ducklings. As will be 
readily appreciated, the necessity of great 
caution and the use of a long focus lens to 
enable the photographer to get a good sized 
picture of the duck at the greatest distance 
is essential. The writer feels as much 
pleasure in a “snap-shot” at a bird as the 
most enthusiastic sportsman armed with his 
favourite shot gun. In a recent editorial 
in “Country Life in America,” Professor 
Bailey referred to animal or nature photo- 
graphy as “the new hunting,” well marking 
the distinction between nature “snap- 
shotting” and the purswt of wild things, 
the destruction of which alone gratifies. 
This new hunting, which under certain 
conditions offers quite as much risk and 
excitement, has everything to commend it as 
compared with the hunting that kills, and 
necessitates as much 
skill and patience. It 
also requests an ob- 
servant and artistic eye 
to appreciate points of 
beauty in animals 
which the man with a 
gun seldom enjoys. 
wf‘ 
THESE North Ameri- 
can birds are com- 
monly called by the 
natives “ Bob White,” 
Described and 
illustrated with 
Photographs 
by 
W. P. Danpo, 
F.Z.S. 
VIRGINIAN COLIN. 
148 
ay nal 
—AND YOUNG. 
after the name of their call, although quite a 
different interpretation would be 
given to the call, if the bird was’ 
heard in a foreign country, just 
as the Germans consider “ Kikenki” as the 
interpretation of the cock’s crow, which we 
consider as sounding like “ Cock-a-doodle-do,” 
yet there is not the shghtest similarity 
between the German and English equivalent 
toa given sound. Great quantities of these 
Virginian colins reach the London markets 
and are sold as quails, which they somewhat 
resemble; the colin is, however, quite a 
different genus. A rather curious experience 
occurred in connection with these marketable 
colins which is worth relating :—Mr. Clarence 
Bartlett haying purchased one for experi- 
mental purposes, opened the craw to examine 
the kind of food these birds feed on in their 
wild state, and discovered therein some seed 
he failed to recognise, but not feeling inclined 
to abandon his investigation, he sowed some 
of it and _ patiently 
waited until it grew 
up into a very pretty 
plant, but being agai 
baffled, he sent one of 
them up to Kew to be 
named, and promptly 
received a warning 
note, to the effect that 
the plant was a dan- 
gerous and poisonous 
one, even to the touch, 
and the plants were 
forthwith destroyed. 
Virginian Colin 
or 
“Bob White.”’ 
