the ground glass of the miniature camera. This enables the operator to focus up to the last instant, and to select the best attitude of his "sitter."
We have a silent time-shutter built in behind the lens, and for very rapid work, such as flying bird studies, use a Thornton & Pickard focal plane shutter working up to the thousandth part of a second.
Good apparatus, that will work under almost any conditions with precision and certaint3% must be possessed for the achievement of
An image should appear at this position in the text.IN THE TREE-TOPS
From Kearton's 'Wild Life at Home' copyrighted by Cassell & Co., Ltd.
successful natural history work. We use the quickest plates made in the old country for the greater part of our work, although, of course, for still objects full of color, we cannot beat Ilford chromatic plates.
We soon discovered that it was absolutely impossible to figure many timid birds at close quarters without some natural contrivance in which the camera and its operator could be effectually hidden. For the study of wood birds at home, we built an artificial tree trunk of sufficient internal capacity to contain either of two broad-shouldered Yorkshiremen. This is how we made it. Purchasing three pieces of stout bamboo, each 7 feet in length, I split them down the center and lashed each piece to three children's bowling hoops, the topmost and center ones being 24 inches in diameter, and the bottom one 27, so as to represent the base of a tree and give the legs of our camera a greater stride. We then covered the whole with galvanized wire and a coat of green American cloth, which my wife painted to resemble the bark of a tree. After this we stuck bits of lichen and moss on to it, and then passed a number of bits of strong grey thread from the inside to the out. With these we tied on several pieces of ivy stripped from adjoining tree trunks, so as to make our contrivance look as natural as possible. How far we succeeded in deceiving the feathered folks of Britain may be judged, when I state that one day a Chaffinch alighted on the broken top of our artificial forest monster and began to rattle off its song just over the unseen photographer's head.
We should much like to hear of this device being tried by some-
