112 Bird -Lore and gymnast, possesses no nerves at all, and can, in consequence, stand on the very lip of a cliff a thousand feet sheer, as he would do on the gutter edge of a sidewalk, and look straight below him. I would advise all who do not possess the above qualities, more or less, to leave cliff photography severely alone, as walking back- wards into a yawning abyss, even on the end of a good, stout rope, feels uncommonly like stepping into eternity, and I would not like to have the blood of any American cousin on my head. Upon reaching the edge of any precipice wherein we suspect, say an Eagle, to be breeding, we step as close to the lip of the crag as possible. I hold the revolver over my head, fire, and watch to see where a bird flies out. Should one do so we mark the spot, drive our crowbar into the ground above it, tie one end of the guide rope securely to it and fling the rest down into the chasm below. The photographer lashes his camera to his back, dons the three loops at the end of the descending rope round his hips, the rope is then passed once round the crowbar, and the assistant pays it out from behind, whilst the photographer, steadying himself by means of the guide-rope, literally walks backwards down the cliff. Before going down, however, he takes good care to clear away all the loose stones and rubble, for if he did not do so they would be sure to be dislodged by the rope when he comes up. Upon reaching an eyrie, if it is situated on a ledge wide enough to set the tripod of the camera on, he does so and makes his studies, taking good care not to let go his ropes. If the nest should be on a ledge too narrow to set the apparatus upon, my brother passes two of the legs of his tripod through a belt round his waist and the third into any convenient crevice he can find, and with his body practically at right angles to the face of the crag and his camera almost resting on his chest, focusses and takes his picture. I feel that I have barely touched the fringe of my subject in this short article, but I have no doubt that to the man equipped with a decent camera and a genuine love of nature, the hints I have given will be sufficient to set him to work natural history picture-making, and, as an old farmer, I know enough of American ingenuity in tool-making to convince me that there is no bird or beast living in the western world that cannot be photographed, living, loving, and laboring in its free, open-air home. Any way, every reader of Bird-Lore has the best wishes of the brothers Kearton.
