4 THE WOMBAT. 
SS 
ee 
with more sedge and wet water weeds. <A dry-cell battery was 
hidden with it, and wires carried to the nest connected with a 
specially designed switch, on which it was hoped the bird would 
tread, and so connect the battery and expose the plate. 
By this means three plates were successfully exposed, and the 
article continues, “ 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 
impossible. Not only birds at their nests, but any bird or animal, 
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 flashlight, to beignited 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 difficulty there was in connecting the camera, were failures. 
Before lexving England experiments were made with the trap 
at a Lapwing’s nest, which were successful three times out of four, 
only so far as that the bird duly went on and released the shutter. 
This at first was uncovered and rather noisy, and the bird 
‘jumped ;”’ the fourth try, the shutter haying been improved and - 
covered in, was entirely successful. The Lapwing, however, this last 
time sat on the switch for a couple of hours and completely ex- 
hausted the dry battery—this contingeney not having been allowed 
for. An automatic ent-off has now been made, and after the release 
of the shutter no more battery action can possibly take place, how- 
ever long the switch is kept pressed down, ‘The shutter, by the 
_way, was made by Messrs Dallmeyer, of Newman-street.” 
The article is accompanied by a plate showing one of the 
results attained ; it is an excellent picture of a Purple Heron stand- 
ing by its nest. 
THE LATE PROFESSOR RALPH TATE. 
Awyorner of our most prominent Australian scientists has passed 
away in the person of Professor Ralph Tate, and one cannot but 
sincerely regret the serions loss to Australian science of further — 
fruits from his ripe experience. He was not old in years, as his age 
at his death was only sixty-one, and one would h.ve expected, in 
the ordinary course of things, that his fiie frame would have lasted 
