A Bird Photographer's Outfit 



105 



flying past unexpectedly near, when not a single photograph could have been 

 taken with an ordinary camera. It is often useful, too, in photographing nests 

 and young in shaky tree tops, where there is no opportunity to attach and focus 

 an ordinary camera. Most of our best work on the precipitous cliffs of Bird 

 Rock was done with Reflex cameras, while dangling in the crate at the end of 

 a long rope, or climbing the ladders. The long, narrow picture of Kittiwake 

 on their nests, in my recent paper in Bird-Lore, was taken from one of the 

 ladders, and is especially interesting as being the last one ever taken with this 



TWO PHOTOGRAPHS OF AN OSPREY AND ITS NEST FROM A DISTANCE OF 



THIRTY FEET 

 The smaller with a 6-inch focus lens; the larger with a 26-inch focus lens 



unlucky camera; for a few moments afterward the strap broke, and down 

 went the camera, bounding over the rocks. I picked it up at the base of the 

 cliff, one hundred feet below, a hopeless wreck. For a wonder, the valuable 

 8 X 10 lens was picked up twenty feet away uninjured, and, what was still more 

 remarkable, this plate was still in the holder, and not even cracked. Fortunately, 

 I had two cameras left, so that I could continue my work. 



The Reflex camera should have two lenses fitted to interchangeable sockets, — • 

 one small lens, adapted to the size of the camera, for general views, and one 

 large lens, of as long focus as it will take, for bird pictures. It should be of the 

 long-focus type, if possible, so that the single combination of a long lens can be 

 used; but, unfortunately, the 4x5 size is not made in the long-focus type. The 



