16 THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 
While dressing, the wonder of the Cardinal chorus came under dis- 
cussion. None of us had ever heard more than a half dozen Cardinals 
singing at once before, and those always scattered wide and only in the 
breeding season, never in August. It was one of Mother Nature’s mysteries 
and we could only say it was in honor of our distinguished guest. 
After the lecture that night we again returned to the cabin and slept 
again on the porch. We were all awake before dawn and lay whispering 
waiting for the Cardinals. “The dawn came, the day came and not one 
note of Cardinal song, nothing but the Crows and a Jay. A two-mile 
paddle in the canoe up the river and an hour’s tramp through the woods 
and thickets brought not one glimpse of a Cardinal feather. But they had 
kept faith with Sharp, had in full measure rewarded the love and admira- 
tion he had for them. 
Were it not for his untimely loss, we should have had this story from 
his own brilliant pen, but I can only record the incident in his memory. 
Filming for Birds 
By F. R. Dickinson. 
A few years ago, being neither very old nor yet very young, I cast 
about for a hobby less exhausting than tennis, less annoying than golf, less 
expensive than motorboating and less sedentary than bridge. Alfred M. 
Bailey, Director of the Chicago Academy of Science, said “Why not motion 
pictures of bird life?” It was a good idea. If birds nested twelve months 
in the year it would have been a perfect idea. 
‘The equipment, though simple, allows some play for ingenuity. My 
own preference in blinds is an affair having four legs of quarter-inch (in- 
side measurement) galvanized iron pipe, held at the top by a round plate 
with four holes through which the threaded ends of the pipes project, with 
a nut above and below each of the holes. The legs have two three and a 
half foot sections joined in the middle by a threaded sleeve coupling. Over 
it all goes a home-made tent of sateen or denim with a few tapes sewed 
inside to the legs. It is light and when taken apart is easily portable. For 
work in trees or on top of a ladder the tent cloth alone serves quite well. 
My first set-up, in Charlevoix County, Michigan, was on a Cedar 
Waxwing’s nest, nicely fitted to a small crotch in a young Hard Maple. 
As the bird seemed positively cordial I carefully climbed a ladder and watch- 
ing her from a distance of five or six feet, thought it was going to be too 
easy and proceeded to hang the blind from a handy limb. And that is the 
end of the story. The bird winged for parts unknown, and I never again 
made a set-up until the subject had a fuil clutch of eggs and had begun 
to incubate. 
