UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES AFIELD 139 



to his body so tightly that he appeared not more 

 than half of his original size, drew down his neck 

 and pointed his beak almost straight up, putting 

 his entire body into a position as nearly perpen- 

 dicular as possible. He was only a few inches 

 from his grassy background, while the morning 

 sun was shining directly on him, for he was on the 

 north bank of the lake. I said to my husband: 

 "I have no camera, but let me make a test of what 

 I could do if I had one." Slowly dropping to my 

 knees I picked up a tackle box in the bottom of the 

 boat, pulled to me a coat which my husband had 

 discarded, set the tackle box on the seat where I 

 had been sitting, and, using the coat for a dark- 

 cloth, I went through every motion that would 

 have been required to set up a camera, focus it, 

 expose, and change plates. The bird stood motion- 

 less. I suggested to my husband that he care- 

 fully move the boat five or six feet closer, then 

 again I went through the performance of taking 

 a picture. We repeated this several times, until 

 my end of the boat was exactly ten feet from 

 the bird. I could not see that an ej^elid quivered 

 or that he moved the tip of a feather; nor did I see 

 any reason for flushing him, because there was a 

 faint hope that I might come around the lake shore 

 some other morning and find him in the same 

 spot, when I was prepared to reproduce his like- 

 ness. So with exactly the same caution we had 

 used in approaching him we slipped away and left 



