Wild Life at Home: How to Study and Photograph It

it,him a prisoner. Did I kill him? Not a bit of

poor little chap. I could not find it in my heart to do that, and he was soon at liberty again.

Another became so tame in one of the packing-rooms of the establishment where I am employed that the porters fed him and regarded

XEST OF HAKVEST MOUSE.

him as a sort of regimental pet, until one day his boldness cost him his life. A stack of parcels fell over and crushed him to death in the middle of a meal. The accompanying illustration of a field-mouse's nest was made from a specimen which we found in a hedge-side. I am inclined to think that, like wrens, they make many they never intend to use

for breeding purposes. I have met with several in the disused old homes of blackbirds and thrushes. During last spring we left our artificial tree-trunk rolled up in a friend's garden for a week or so, and when we came to use it again found

a beautiful mouse's nest inside it. Our interest however, in the structure was rather cooled by the discovery that it was composed in great part of the strings with which we tied the various parts of our contrivance together.

Bats both great and small are to be met with in most parts of the country where trees prevail, and may be photographed in their dismal hiding-quarters by the aid of magnesium flashlight.

When at rest they hang head downward, as shown in the picture on the previous page, but generally with their wings closed, and I have corne across a dozen suspended in a cluster to the roof-timbers of old buildings. Fallow, red and roe deer are all to be found as near London as Epping Forest, and careful stalking with a hand-camera would doubtless yield pictures. My brother tried one day with his tripod double-lens apparatus, but the animals were too quick for him. From the stately and leisurely way in which stags I have watched come down from the mountains to drink in a Highland loch during the very early hours of the morning, I should say that photographs might be made of them with the

telephoto-lens. A herd of wild cattle still roam in Chillingham Park, Northumberland, where they have lived and bred for the last six hundred years at least, according to well authenticated history. Unlike our various breeds of domestic cattle, they feed at night and rest by day. They have a peculiar habit of galloping round strangers approaching them, and decreasing the diameter of each circle until it is unsafe to remain in their proximity. Strangely enough I have frequently known this trick performed by domestic cattle when visited in a large pasture by night.

There is a herd of goats that have gone wild

on Ailsa Craig, also another in Mull; and a flock of perfectly wild sheep, sprung, it is thought, from a few domesticated specimens left by the Vikings, have grazed upon the little Isle of Soa, one of the St. Kilda group, for something like a thousand

years.

THE HAUNT OF THE KINGFISHER.

CHAPTER VI.

INSECTS AND OTHER SMALL DEER.

ONE of the most interesting branches of natural history photography is that devoted to insects. It does not demand any great physical strain or undue nerve tension, and with a little patience and skill can be made to yield exceedingly pleasing results. Although butterflies are lively, airy subjects, they may, under suitable conditions, and with a certain amount of care, be approached and photographed at close quarters. One afternoon, during the early part of last April, whilst reconnoitring the breeding haunt of a particular pair of birds, the nest of which we were very desirous of finding, we suddenly fell in with a number of small tortoiseshell butterflies that had no doubt hibernated during the mild winter in some old tumble-down sheds close by. My brother approached one of them with his camera, but the sun being out it was of no use, for the insect flitted from place to place in the most fickle fashion. By-and-by a cloud came over the sun, and the butterflies, of which we had quite half a dozen within a

SMALL TORTOI8ESHELL BUTTEKFLY.

few yards of us, remained still where they had alighted, spreading their wings out and displaying their array of beautiful colours. We made one study of the insect nearest to us as it rested on a piece of an old mowing machine, and then approached and made another at much shorter range. Upon preparing to expose a third plate with the camera nearer still, the sun came out in a bright warm gleam and up went the wings of the small tortoiseshell. In another moment it would have oft' to join its companions in an aerialbeen up and waltz had not my brother, noticing the change in its demeanour, gently pushed his head forward so as to intercept the sun's rays and throw the insect into shadow. The effect was instantaneous; down went the wings from the vertical to the horizontal and the butterfly became quiescent. We made one or two more studies, and then some experiments upon its behaviour under shadow and sunshine. Directly my brother moved his head on one side up went the wings, but when it was again placed in the shade the insect evidently thought that the life-giving gleam had ended and quietly dropped them. We tried others with precisely similar results, and yet when I have watched them to their sleeping quarters in the evening, behind pieces of dislodged bark and old boards, I have always found them with wings erect. We tried over and over again to make a picture of a common white butterfly in my garden, by

focussing some favourite flower and then waiting, but there is a tantalising perverseness about the creatures which prevents them from visiting any flower upon which the recording eye of a camera is

fixed. As the vivacity of most insects is measurable by the prevailing temperature, we tried again one day in the early part of summer when the thermometer was low and intermittent bursts of sunshine cheated a few butterflies forth, and we succeeded in making WHITE BUTTERFLY. the photograph reproduced on this page whilst the creature rested on a turnip leaf. One great point which must be observed in photographing insects is to make quite sure that they are perfectly still, and that the object upon which they are resting is not being swayed to and fro by the wind.

Of course, it is quite

possible to focus a flower

or other object which is

much frequented by

winged insects and secure

a photograph by a little

patient waiting. Whilst

wandering along a Hertfordshire lane one hot

morning last July we were

astonished to see meadow

brown butterflies dancing

hither and thither in every

direction. I counted over

a dozen upon some thistles

which were growing so

close to each other that

they might have been

covered with an ordinary

handkerchief, and my

brother fixed up his

camera and took the accompanying photograph

of one of the flowers and

its visitors. I noticed

that many of the butterflies had their wings so

worn and frayed that their

progress through the air

MEADOW-BROWNS. was distinctly weaker

and slower than that of their better equipped relatives. Although the majority of butterflies creep into holes, behind pieces of detached bark, under the

OBANGE TIP BUTTERFLY.

roofs of buildings and similar places, to spend the night, some of them, especially the smaller species, simply hang on to flowers, grass stems, and similar objects in the fields. One evening in May, whilst rambling along a hedgerow side in search of anything interesting I could find, I discovered an orange tip butterfly asleep on a wild flower. Later on we tried to photograph it by means of the magnesium flash-lamp, but as our bull's-eye lantern could not be coaxed

into emitting sufficient light to focus by, we burnt some magnesium ribbon in order to accomplish our end. This presented an unforeseen difficulty. Directly the bright white light flashed out the butterfly became full of animation, spread out its antenna? to right and left, danced about and leant over on one side as if it were under the impression that the light was giving forth some vitalising warmth, whereas it was much too far away for the insect to derive the least GRASS MOTH AT "SUGAR. benefit of that kind from it. After a good deal of trouble we succeeded in focussing the insect near the part of the flower where I originally found it, and made a negative from which the picture on the previous page has been reproduced. Curiously enough upon trying to focus a small dragon-fly by the light from a bit of magnesium

ribbon its behaviour was precisely similar to that of the orange tip. During the summer months great sport may be enjoyed, and good pictures obtained by "sugaring"

STAG HKKTI.KS.

for moths. This consists of going forth just before dusk into a wood, spinney, or field with a fair amount of timber in it, and smearing the tree-trunks about four feet from the ground with a mixture of treacle, rum, and essence of jargonelle pears, which may be bought ready for use at any naturalist's shop, or prepared by mixing the

ingredients in the following proportions: a quarter of a pound of common treacle, half a quartern ot rum, and six drops of essence. Some entomologists : aprepare their " sugar " by mixing the following quarter of a pound of treacle, one gill of ale or porter, one quartern of rum, and one pound of coarse brown sugar, which they heat to boiling-point. A warm, cloudy evening, with the wind in the south or the west, is the best. As soon as we have done smearing, we walk round with our bull's-eye lantern, camera, and flash-lamp, and photograph any moths we may find hard at it, sucking up the decoction through their long spiral trunks. It is absolutely necessary to see that the moth which is being photographed is not, in the exuberance of its joy at having found such a treat, vibrating its wings rapidly at the moment the plate is exposed. It may be well to warn the student against some of the unaccountable disappointments which are likely to beset his path in this kind of work. My brother and I have sometimes gone out on evenings that appeared, according to all human cal-culations, eminently suitable, and after "sugaring" thirty or forty trees in a wide circle have not seen a single moth. On the other hand, we have seen crowds running about the trunks of trees which we had " sugared " several nights before.