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Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/215

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THE WILD BIRD AT ARM'S LENGTH.
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window, which is now open in the tent-front, and of the glass eye of the camera gleaming through it, but the lens is also silent and motionless, and soon becomes a familiar object to be finally disregarded. Again there is the fear which the sound of the shutter, a sharp metallic click, at first inspires, unless you are the fortunate possessor of an absolutely silent and rapid shutter. At its first report, when two feet away, many birds will jump as if shot, give an angry scream, and even fly at the tent as if to exorcise an evil spirit, while after a few hours they will only wince; finally they will not budge a feather at this or any

Fig. 6. The Brown Thrush, standing on his Nest, has heard an Unusual Sound and is listening intently.

other often repeated sound, whether from shutter, steam whistle, locomotive or the human voice.

It is the young, the young, always the young in whom the interest of the old birds is centered, and about whom their lives revolve. They