the fishermen tried to disengage it, some of its claws came off. ^ Whilst spending a week end on the Norfolk Broads last spring we made a great effort to secure a photograph of a bearded tit, or reed

pheasant, feeding its young, but unfortunately for us, we failed to l^^^mr find a single nest with a brood still remaining in it. I did, however, discover from a housetop a pair of adult birds entering and leaving a particular reed-bed with suspicious regularity, and got our boatman to punt us round to the place. When we reached it we found three very juvenile tits

SWIFT hopping about amongst the reeds. I dashed out of the boat after them on to a little floating island of tangled aquatic vegetation,

but they were far too quick for me, and I got very wet, in addition to having several narrow es-capes from dropping out of sight in the numerous water-holes studding the island, for my pains.

By dint of great patience AVC eventually succeeded in capturing all three, and, placing two of them inside my leather field-glass case, we tethered the remaining one very carefully to a solitary withy with some soft material I happened to have in my pocket at the time, and in such a way that he could not by any means hurt himself. At first he naturally resented being obliged to stay in one place, but after he discovered his inability to wander about amongst the reeds, which I must say he did very speedily, he settled down in a contented state of mind to wait for and enjoy the good things his parents brought him. A light breeze was blowing at the time, and when the adult birds drew near with a supply of food they sometimes rested for a few moments in the most grotesque attitudes I ever saw members of the feathered world assume. Grasping a tall reed in either foot, and poising their bodies perpendicularly between the two, they looked exactly like miniature gymnasts climbing parallel vertical poles. I was astonished at the great width of grasp they could make in this way, their legs sometimes appearing to shoot out almost at right angles to their bodies.

The male bird was far bolder than his com-

panion and fed his captive child until it would not open its bill for another insect, at which he appeared to become angry. I noticed that he hunted for his prey close down to the water amongst the reeds. In addition to not being so

ROJiIN'S NEST IX BASKET.

bold the female could not be credited with the same amount of industry, and often swallowed the supply of food she had ostensibly brought for her chick. The fact of the male bird feeding his captive young one until it would not look at the food he brought it may to some extent explain why all the members of a brood get a sustaining

share those that become satisfied first hang back and give their hungry brothers and sisters a chance. I am more inclined to believe this than that a bird, only fetching one caterpillar at a time to a family of seven or eight, knows each

CHEAT TIT GOIJ

chick, and remembers upon every visit exactly which had the proceeds of his or her last journey.

As soon as we had made a few studies, one of which forms the frontispiece to this work, with the camera and its operator hidden among the reeds, we released all the- little captives, and they went off with their parents as happy as could be.

Many species of birds seem to have a positive liking for curious nesting-places, and thus afford opportunities for the photographer to secure pictures of two-fold interest.

The illustration on page 87 represents a robin's

WHEN S NEST IN HOPE.

nest and eggs in a little fancy hand-basket which had, after growing old and faded, been relegated to a shed at the rear of a Hertfordshire village hostelry. It provided a soft foundation for the nest on account of its containing the feathers of a

barn-door fowl, which had been killed and plucked into it the previous winter.

The majority of the members of the tit family have a proneness to build in such odd situations as letter-boxes, street-lamps, and disused old pumps. We have met with several pairs of great tits breeding in the last-named quarters, and it is great fun to fix up the camera and endeavour to photograph the busy creatures entering and leaving a spout whilst tending their young. It is a good plan to bar the hole up with something whilst they are away, and snap off directly they return, for they then remain still for an instant considering the obstruction. The picture on page 88 was secured in this way, but not until considerable patience had been expended upon the subject. Finding it impossible to photograph either of the parent birds as they went in and out on account of their uneasy habits and very rapid movements, we thrust a large leaf up the spout of the old pump. Instead of firing directly the astonished creature stopped for a moment to examine the nature of the barrier, my brother dallied in expectation of a better chance. It never came. The practical little bird placed the food she had brought on the top of the spout, went inside, hauled the leaf out and dropped it, seized the caterpillar she had brought, and straightway went about her business. The leaf was promptly replaced, and when the tit returned a vigorous squeeze upon the air-ball

dominating the rapid shutter secured her portrait, just as she peeped inquiringly inside the circular leaden passage to her nest.

Towards the end of last May I was shown a great tit's nest built inside an old one, belonging to a thrush, situated in an open hedgerow. It contained a large family of recently-hatched young ones, which were being assiduously fed by their parents. Common wrens sometimes select odd quarters for their nests, and do strange things in collecting material wherewith to build them.

I watched the building of the nest figuring on page 89, and as the tiny structure was never lined with feathers, I presume it belonged to a male bird. The coil of rope was hanging up inside an ancient and somewhat dilapidated hay-binding shed, on the door-hinge of which a nest, very closely resembling an accidental collection of old hay, was ultimately built and used for breeding purposes. I used to think that wrens were clever enough to hide the whereabouts of their nests by building them of such materials as harmonised with surrounding objects, but a more extended experience has shaken my faith in their wisdom. Whilst the female was brooding on the nest mentioned above, her mate amused himself by building three " cocks' nests," two in the sides of a rick a few yards away, and one in a neighbouring cart-shed. One of those in the rick had all its outside made

92 Wip Lire at Home. of green hay, evidently plucked from the hole in which it was built, but the other had all or nearly all its outer wall made of dead leaves, gathered from a ditch close by, which rendered it a very conspicuous brown object. The wife of au country friend of ours one day threaded a sewing - needle with black cotton in her bedroom, and hearing one of her children cry out downstairs, laid it carefully — on ROOKS’ NESTS. her dressing-table and hastened below to see what was the matter with her bairn. Upon returning to do her mending she was astonished to discover that both needle and thread had vanished. A few days afterwards her husband and my brother found the thread

interwoven in a wren's nest, from which the needle dangled down, in a creeper at the back of the house. The bold bird had entered the bedroom through the open window during the lady's momentary absence and snatched up what she, no doubt, considered eligible building materials. On page 41 AVC gave an illustration showing our method of photographing "among the slender branches." Our. picture of the "Rooks' Nests " represents one of the many results obtained with the Camera O11 HOUSE-SPARROWS WAITING HREAKFAST. the ground. To those who do not live far out of large towns, and have but few opportunities of photographing a wide range of bird-life, I would strongly recommend a trial upon house-sparrows, hedge-sparrows, robins, chaffinches, and tits, which in winter time may

generally be met with in any suburban back garden, where a fair degree of quiet and a supply of food prevail. We sometimes place our camera on a rough wooden grocer's box in the garden, and focussing a few pea - sticks on which birds are in the habit of alighting, cover it over with an old sack, and throwing a few crumbs down close by, retire indoors, with the ball of the pneumatic tube in hand, to wait. The house-sparrows on page 93 were photographed in this way, and when the study had been made, one of my little daughters, a child of six, having heard of catching birds by placing a pinch of salt on their tails, thought that she would try her hand at capturing some of the dickies. Procuring a supply of salt and some bread-crumbs, she placed a quantity of each in such situations that a bird engaged upon eating the one would be likely to touch the other with his tail, and retired indoors to wyait and watch results. Our servant, a big Lincolnshire lass, took a great deal of interest in the matter, and very gravely tailasked my wife how a pinch of salt on a bird's

?could secure it did it fascinate the poor little thing

When snow is on the ground we always feed the birds liberally, and in photographing them hide the camera beneath a white sheet or tablecloth.

There is a great deal of very interesting natural-history work still to be done in the direction of studying the tracks of wild creatures in the snow. I remember with what pleasure, when a lad. I

WALKING.

HOPPING.

BIRDS’ TRACKS IN SNOW.

()6 WILD LIFE AT HOME.

learnt to distinguish a hare's footprints from a rabbit's. During the short stay of the snow which fell during the blizzard we experienced in March of this year, my brother endeavoured to make some permanent records of the tracks of birds, but failed on account of the lack of contrast between the parts of the snow pressed down by the toes of the creatures and the rest of the white field aroiind. 1 accordingly secured a supply of fine sand, dyed it black, and placing it in a bottle ran a quantity carefully through a narrow nozzle into the indentation made by the down-pressed toes of the birds. We photographed the tracks of a rook and a blackbird by this means, and reproduce herewith the results which we obtained. Having a foot-rule in my pocket. I measured the stride of the former bird, and found it to average six and a half inches, and the hop of the latter nine inches.

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