RARE PICTURES AFIELD 193 



and the appearance of wisdom and poise, while 

 their soft feathering is so spineless that it is like 

 down of a dim grey colour, faintly peppered with 

 darker touches almost invisible, the wing and tail 

 feathers at their jfirst appearance being sharply 

 touched with patches of black and white. 



While on the subject of young birds, which I 

 have reproduced by the hundreds, there come to 

 my mind preeminently half a dozen pictures of a 

 pair of young kingfishers which I had taken from 

 their nest, handled, and returned so often that they 

 would remain in any position in which I placed 

 them. Two pictures of these young ones are par- 

 ticularly good. To these I might add the likeness 

 of a pair of young cuckoos, which never fail to 

 bring a cry of delight to the lips of anyone to whom 

 I show them. I have also one studj^ of a pair of 

 young cardinals, male and female, which is con- 

 spicuous among dozens of the kind. 



From a perching hummingbird on a la France 

 rose I secured an unusual study of this bird of 

 humming, tireless wing; while quail once gave me 

 an excellent example of protective colouration, as 

 have killdeers, larks, and bitterns in the Wabash 

 River. I have no brooding study of which I am 

 prouder than that of a hen lark, which entered her 

 nest, after I had opened it slightly wider than she 

 had designed it, and before a hidden lens settled 

 herself to brooding at an angle which gave a long 

 sweep from tip to tail, her head and eyes beauti- 



