292 



THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Resetting the shutter, and covering all up, the trap was left 

 again until after 6 p.m., when a second visit again found it 

 sprung, and the plate duly exposed ; while on a subsequent day — 

 the last one of my stay — she came on again. The first Heron, 

 I think I may safely say, to photograph itself with electricity, 

 but probably not the last. 



If this method succeeds with a bird of such extreme shyness 

 and timidity as the Purple Heron, it should prove of great 

 service in obtaining records of birds and animals hitherto im- 

 possible. Not only birds at their nest, but any bird or animal, 



Ardea imrpurea automatically photographed by itself. 



large or small, diurnal or nocturnal, which can be attracted by a 

 bait, or which habitually uses the same path or run, can now be 

 photographed. Of course, for nocturnal animals the inclusion 

 in the circuit of a flash-light, to be ignited by the same current 

 which operates on the shutter, is indispensable. 



Besides the Purple Heron, the trap was tried at the nests of a 

 Marsh-Harrier and a Great Crested Grebe. These attempts, from 

 the difl&culty there was in concealing the camera, were failures. 



