Vol. XXVI, No. 1 



WASHINGTON 



July, 1914 



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HUNTING WITH THE LENS 



By Howard H. Cleaves 



With Photographs by the Author 



NOT long ago one of our foremost 

 ornithologists surprised me by re- 

 marking that, in his opinion, the 

 work of bird protection m this country 

 had been carried to an extreme ! He 

 pointed out that every great bird student, 

 to his knowledge, had received his start 

 by collectmg eggs and making up study 

 skins, but that the doing of these things 

 lies beyond the reach of the present-day 

 lad by reason of the strictness of the law. 



I ventured to suggest that most of the 

 famous ornithologists had made their be- 

 gmnings before the era of the camera 

 and the inexpensive field-glass, and that 

 through these instruments as mediums the 

 youth of the twentieth century can de- 

 velop and maintain as deep an interest in 

 bird life as his counterpart of a hundred 

 years ago was led to do as a result of 

 collecting. 



As a matter of fact, this is an age of 

 popular interest, and is getting to be one 

 of conservation as well. The scientific 

 specialist will ever be with us, and it will 

 always be possible for him to secure nec- 

 essary material for his intensive studies ; 

 but to open the way for every one in the 

 land to destroy such quantities of wild 

 creatures as might be deemed essential 

 to develop within him the foundation for 

 a scientific career would be a decided mis- 

 take. It were better to have fewer scien- 

 tists and more birds. 



Not, after all, that those truly inter- 

 ested in research have made any appreci- 



able inroads on the bird population — al- 

 though Audubon himself, in telling of his 

 Florida episodes, says : "Each of us, pro- 

 vided with a gun, posted himself behind 

 a bush, and no sooner had the water 

 forced the winged creatures to approach 

 the shore than the work of destruction 

 commenced. When it at length ceased 

 the collected mass of birds of different 

 kinds looked not unlike a small hay- 

 cock" — but laws which are left loose for 

 a worthy purpose are certain to be taken 

 advantage of by the greedy and unscrupu- 

 lous. 



This account and the accompanying 

 pictures are submitted to the reader with 

 the special purpose of emphasizing the 

 truth of the already oft-repeated con- 

 tention that it is more glorious and profit- 

 able to shoot birds through a lens than 

 through the bore of a gun. The photo- 

 graphs are all of birds to be found in 

 eastern North America, and might have 

 been secured by any person with standard 

 photographic equipment and a fair supply 

 of energy and patience. 



DIFFERENT TEMPERAMENT IN DIFFERENT 

 BIRDS 



The infinite variety of problems that 

 must be met and overcome in securing 

 photographs of wild birds under natural 

 conditions should appeal to any one who 

 has even a spark of ingenuity. The mode 

 of procedure applied successfully to one 

 subject may fail completely in the case 



