WILD LIFE AT HOME

HOW TO

STUDY AND PHOTOGRAPH IT

BY R. KEARTON, F.Z.S.

ILLUSTRATED BY

PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN

DIRECT FROM NATURE

BY C. KEARTON

EX

[illegible handwritten annotation]

Ex Libris

1C. K. OGDEN

[illegible handwritten annotation]

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WILD LIFE AT HOME

ty

WORKS BY R. KEARTON, F.Z.S.

With Nature and a Camera. Illustrated by a Special Frontispiece and 180 Pictures from

Photographs taken direct from Nature by CHERRY

KEARTON. Buckram gilt, zis.

British Birds' Nests: How, Where, and

When to Find and Identify Them. With nearly 130 Illustrations of Nests, Eggs, Young, etc., from Photographs by C. KEARTON. 2 is.

Birds' Nests, Eggs, and Egg-Collecting.

Illustrated with 22 Coloured Plates of Eggs.

Revised and Enlarged Edition. Cloth gilt, 55.

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited, London; Paris, Knv York and Melbourne.

MALE BEARDED TIT FEEDING ITS YOUNG.

Wild Life at Home

How to Study and Photograph It

By R. Kearton, F.Z.S.

Author of “With Nature and a Camera,” “British Birds’ Nests,” etc., etc.

Fully illustrated by photographs taken direct from nature by C. Kearton.

Cassell and Company, Limited

London, Paris, New York & Melbourne

1898

All rights reserved.

A HOST OF DEAR OLD COMRADES

TOILING WITHIN SOUND

OF

THE BELOVED HUM OF FLEET STREET.

2015243

PREFACE.

SINCE the publication of our last work "With Nature and a Camera" my brother and I have received numerous letters from naturalists and

photographers throughout the country seeking information and assistance on all sorts of subjects connected with the art of portraying wild creatures in their native haunts. In order to meet this desire for knowledge, we have prepared such a manual as will, we honestly believe, enable every one of average intelligence and perseverance to go out into the fields with a camera and secure pictures equal to anything we have ourselves obtained; and no single item of our experience calculated to help the reader of this book in the attainment of his object has been withheld. The study of natural history possesses many charms and benefits, chief among which are solace

to the mind and health to the body, and thanks to the insistance upon its delights by many of our great daily and weekly newspapers, a love of the subject, and desire to know more about it, are growing amongst all classes of the community, and it is our earnest desire to help others, if only in ever so small a degree, to read the great book of Nature.

No one can possibly know the fascination of stalking wild creatures in their native haunts with the camera except the man who has himself indulged in the sport. I am aware that I do not approach my subject with the judicial coldness of an unloving eye, but at the same time I speak as a man who knows well the joys of shooting the lordly grouse and circumventing the wily trout, and I unhesitatingly say that this new and bloodless form of sport beats them both in point of downright interest. To pit one's skill and ingenuity against the shyness and cunning of a wild bird, or summon the courage and endurance to descend to its home in the face of some dizzy ocean cliff, is in itself a feat which calls forth the very best hunting instincts of the human race.

Besides being bloodless and consequently harm-

less, this new form of sport also possesses the additional advantage of yielding permanent trophies of the skill and endurance of its votaries, whilst leaving the originals to enjoy their wild free lives, and sit for the next naturalist photographer who comes along to delight in studying them.

This book, which is entirely popular, does not pretend in any measure whatsoever to assume the nature of a guide to collecting and preserv. ing any of the beasts, birds, or insects described in its pages, but is simply designed to help the finding, studying, and photographing of wild things at home going about the everyday business of their lives. It contains a succinct account of our new devices, which are of such value that we have, within the last two or three months, succeeded in photographing the shyest of our feathered friends within a few inches of the camera, and made observations of the most interesting character.

A feature of the book is, that it has been written almost entirely in the fields. Some parts of it have been penned beneath the frowning crags of Shetland, others under the milk-white bloom of a Surrey hedgerow. It has engaged my attention

at all times of the day, but mostly before and alter business hours, when summer mists hung low over the land at sunrise and the birds were mad with joy, when the light of a glorious day was dying in the ruddy west, and innumerable insects were droning back and forth through the balmy air; and I can only hope that its readers may taste some of the joy and peace that Nature has ever given to me and is freely offering to all men.

RICHARD KEARTOX.

CATEKHAM VALLEY,

SURREY.

Nov., 1898.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

APPARATUS AND GENERAL ADVICE... 1

CHAPTER II.

PHOTOGRAPHING IN CLIFFS AND TREES, AND FROM BOATS 20

CHAPTER III.

BIRDS... 46

CHAPTER IV.

BIRDS (continued)... 72

CHAPTER V.

MAMMALS... 113

CHAPTER VI.

INSECTS AND OTHER SMALL DEER... 136

CHAPTER VII.

BITS BY POND, RIVER, AND SEASHORE... 162

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

xiv

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

xv

riSMING SMACK UNDER SAIL.

WILD LIFE AT HOME

CHAPTER I.

APPARATUS AND GENERAL ADVICE.

THE importance of the points to be dealt with in this chapter can hardly be over-estimated, for upon their intelligent observance and carrying out depends to a very considerable extent the success likely to be ultimately achieved.

I do not propose to go into the chemical or optical side of photography, because it would hardly come within the province of this work, apart from the fact that there are plenty of cheap and trustworthy guides upon the subject.

The question of the price of a camera is one which must be settled to a certain extent by the means of the aspirant; however, let me hasten to add, for the encouragement of all those who are not blessed with an abundance of loose cash, that nowadays an outfit can be bought very cheaply, and that my brother started out upon his photographic career with a guinea camera, with

B

which he succeeded in making sun pictures sufficiently good and interesting to warrant him in persevering. The only advice I have to give is that whatever you are going to buy, put your money into a lens of good quality and a camera of strength and stability rather than of elegance, for natural-history photography demands the withstanding of far greater strain and wear and tear than ordinary studio work. Our camera, of which we give an illustration on the opposite page, is a half-plate one, fitted with a Dallmeyer stigmatic lens and an adjustable miniature on the top, which is used as a sort of view-finder when making studies of flying birds. When fixed in position, and its focus has been set exactly like its working companion beneath it, both are racked out in the same ratio by the screw dominating the larger apparatus, which, when charged with a slide and stopped down according to the requirements of light and speed of exposure, needs no further attention. When the combination is in use the photographer focusses with his right hand, and holding the air-ball or reservoir of his pneumatic tube in his left, squeezes it quickly and firmly, directly he has achieved a sufficiently clear and strong definition of his object, upon the ground-glass of the miniature camera.