“ My bold tassel hawk— 
a leg, but saw no head. While tearing it up with his beak I could 
hear its bones crack and snap. Occasionally, when the lump that 
came away was unusually large, he swallowed it himself, as also 
happened when it consisted of a large piece of skin or one of the long 
bones. The puffin afforded more than the young required, and the 
Tiercel ate steadily himself for the last two or-three minutes and, 
leaving the carcase unfinished, settled down to brood the young, 
the meal having lasted sixteen minutes. He had a job to spread 
himself over them, and as he sat, one or more showed in front. As 
at 10.30 a.m. the light had considerably improved, I took one of 
him at I-25sec., there being too much movement to make the 
studio shutter safe, as when he was not moving his head, one of the 
‘young would be sure to be wriggling. With the fifteen-inch lens, 
at a distance of eight feet his image measured two inches.on the screen. 
At rr a.m. he looked skywards, hopped on to C and flew round, 
giving the food cry, but flew down again in a few minutes without 
any. About 11.30 he came off the young and, jumping on to C, began 
to preen himself. After a little consideration I risked scaring him, 
so loosened the camera screw and slowly turned the camera on to 
him. I found, however, that the shelf was tilted too far backward 
for this position, so that only the lower half of his body was on the 
screen. Then I found the floor of the shed littered with spare 
laths and other things requiring noiseless removal before the shelf- 
frame could swing forward into a horizontal position. When all 
was free I found that the bar that fixed the frame in the rack had 
swelled, and it required some time to get it out. Then, when I had 
noiselessly swung the shelf forward and fixed it, I found, on focus- 
sing, that there was a green blur all over him, which, on removing 
the focussing screen, resolved itself into a piece of weed dangling 
in front of the lens. Again I had to risk his displeasure. Putting 
on my gloves, I cautiously protruded the scissors and snipped the 
weed off. He merely stopped preening and watched the proceed- 
ings with a quizzical expression. After that it was all plain sailing, 
and feeling that the chance of photographing the Tiercel at a distance 
of five feet was not an every-day occurrence, I rapidly exposed my 
last seven plates on him, only waiting once or twice to make sure 
of the focus. As he did not seem to mind, I wasted no time in being 
