jgirli = lore 



A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 

 DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Official Organ of the Audubon Societics 



Vol. 1 



August, 1899 



No. 4 



Photographing Shy Wild Birds and Beasts at Home 



BY R. KEARTON. F. Z. S. 



Author of "WiUl Life at Home; How to Stiuly and Plioloifrapli It;" 

 " With Nature and a Camera," etc. 



M^' 



ftsas?^- 



brother and I were both delighted to see the 

 first number of Bird-Lore, and take the oppor- 

 tunity of congratulating our naturalist and pho- 

 graphic chums across the Atlantic upon having such a 

 practical and highly interesting magazine to help them 

 in their enchanting pursuits. Such a publication would 

 have been a veritable godsend to us when we started 

 our natural history photography. 

 As we have had a good deal of experience in circumventing the 

 cunning and timidity of the majority of wild creatures living in the 

 British Isles, and the same characteristics in this respect are common 

 to wild animals all the world over, I propose to tell by what means 

 we have secured some of our rarest pictures. 



First of all, I ought to explain that we never use anything but a 

 strongly built, half-plate stand camera, fitted with a Dallmeyer stig- 

 matic lens, and an adjustable miniature on the top. which is used as 

 a sort of view-finder when making studies of flying birds and mam- 

 mals in motion. When fixed in position, and its focus has been set 

 exactly like its working companion beneath it, both are racked out in 

 the same ratio by the screw dominating the larger apparatus which, 

 when charged with a dark slide and stopped down according to the 

 requirements of light and speed of exposure, needs no further atten- 

 tion. When the combination is in use. the photographer focuses 

 with his right hand, and, holding the air ball or reservoir of his pneu- 

 matic tube in his left, squeezes it quickly and firmly directly he has 

 achieved a sufficiently clear and strong definition of his object upon 



