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Photographing a Bluebird 



BY ROBERT W. HEGNER 

 Willi Pliotograplis from Nature by the Autli(jr. 



During the severe cold of January and February, 

 1895, most of the Bluebirds were thought to 

 have perished. So it is with the spirit of a 

 genuine Audubon that we hail their return in ever in- 

 creasing numbers each succeeding spring. How sadly 

 we should miss these little friends may be judged by 

 the great commotion among ornithologists caused by 

 their supposed extinction. In order to have more than 

 a mere remembrance of their habits, I set out one day in the summer 

 of 1898, at Decorah, Iowa, to obtain photographs of them in their 

 haunts, and secured two interesting negatives of the female, as shown 



BLUEBIRD FLYING TO NEST 



in the accompanying illustrations. The history of the case is as fol- 

 lows : A pair of Bluebirds, after several previous attempts at house- 

 keeping, and subsequent removals by 'small boys,' at last selected an 

 old, deserted, Woodpecker's hole in a fence-post, and built, as usual, 

 a nest of dry grass with a softer lining of horse-hair. The birds had 

 already begun incubating the three pale blue eggs, which formed the 

 set, when 1 disturbed them. I crept within five feet of the post be- 



(43) 



