Fortunately, however, each and every one of these drawbacks, save the second mentioned, can be overcome, and this the writer proposes to do in the near future.
Insects, again, make very instructive pictures as taken by means of the camera, though frequently they are secured with no little difficulty. Photographic pictures of this kind are in the writer's collection, showing beetles, spiders, butterflies, and the like, and a number of them have already been published. Great restlessness on the part of most of the subjects is here what chiefly has to be dealt with and overcome. The large black and yellow butterfly, taken life size, and shown in Fig. 4, occupied the best part of two hours to obtain. It was extremely restive, and declined over and over again to alight upon the day lily that had been selected for it as a perch. Still, indefatigable patience, the prime qualification for achievement in this field of art, in time won over the unintentional obstinacy on the part of this lovely insect, and victory finally crowned the long series of efforts made to secure its photograph. Nothing whatever can be gained here where harshness, haste, or lack of tact are allowed to come into play. On the contrary, one must not only be more or less familiar with the habits of the subject in Nature that he is trying to secure the picture of, but every act and movement on the part of the artist to accomplish this end must be characterized by extreme gentleness, patience, and perseverance, or else the desired goal will never be reached, and the science of zoölogy will forever remain ignorant of his power to produce portraits of living forms as they appear in Nature, by employing to that end such an instrument as the photographic camera.
