April, 1922 The Queensland Naturalist. 83; 
kind. I ignored this antagonism, bent as I was on seeing 
what was in that home, and I drew myself upwards until 
[ could see two little fluffy occupants. 
When a bushman wishes to demonstrate his satisfac- 
tion with an event he usually says, 4 ‘That ’ll do. me!” and 
so I repeated these words to myself as I carefully stepped 
to the ground. As I walked around the tree studying the 
thickness of the bush and the best direction to point the 
camera lens, suitable to the light, the old bird sat above,, 
motionless and silent, but watching me suspiciously. 
After deciding on the time of some future day favour- 
able to photography, and tying back a few limbs that would 
probably be an obstruction to the camera eye. I left the 
spot for the time being. 
Mother Bower-bird; more tractable. 
(‘‘In a dark place, surrounded by protective colouring.”) 
It is outside the object of these notes to relate all the 
many little dodges resorted to in photographing this bird, 
at its nest. Suffice it to say that for three weeks I gave 
up all my spare time to 4 4 battling” with a shifty, cunning, 
and suspicious subject, surrounded by protective colouring, 
in a dark spot with streaks of strong light from a summer' 
sun striking through. And so the failures and disappoint- 
ments were many. 
Is it possible that the ease with which one could 
mistake a Bower-bird ’s nest for some other only partly 
built (and therefore not looked more closely into) is the- 
principal reason that so few nests are seen? The construe- 
