NATURE AND THE CAMERA HOW TO PHOTO- GRAPH LIVE BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS ANIMALS, WILD AND TAME REPTILES INSECTS FISH AND OTHER AQUATIC FORMS FLOWERS, TREES, AND FUNGI BY A. RADCLYFFE DUGMORE AUTHOR OF BIRD HOMES ILL USTRA TED FROiV PHOTOGRA PHS BY THE A UTHOK NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE CO. 1903 Nature and the Camera WOOII-TIIKlrSH FAMILE. Phrtugraphrd thirty tert frum the mlund. The vuunb am ready trr leave their nest. Copyright, lgoz DOUBLEDAY, PAGE CO. This little book is dedicated, as a slight token of esteem, to my friend H. W. L., who by the interest he has shown in things natural has earned the gratitude of all students and lovers of nature INTRODUCTION As a means of studying nature in most of its many forms, there is, perhaps, nothing better than the camera. Not only does it teach us to see much that would otherwise pass unnoticed, but it enables us to make records of what we see-records that are, as a rule, infinitely better and more useful than pencil notes and the studying and photographing of one subject leads to another, and so we go from birds to insects, from insects to flowers, and from flowers to trees, until we have an acquaintance with things natural more intimate and far broader in its scope than would have resulted had we been content simply to try to see things and write notes on them. Nowadays, when every school has or should have its nature class, we find children scarcely out of the kindergarten who know more about our wiId birds and flowers than the great majority of the grown-up people to whom nature study was an unknown thing when they were young. To foster this desire in children to know more of the life about them is v v i INTRODUCTION ones duty, for not only is there great pIeasure to be derived from such knowledge and healthful exercise in the search of material, but knowing something about the birds, trees, or insects enables them through- out life to work intelligently for the preservation of that which needs protection. Garne laws would be respected more generaIly if people would onIy realise what they mean. The senseless and wanton killing of animal life that goes on all around us would not be tolerated if there was more knowledge of the value of such life. How often do we see people kilI hawks, thinking that they are doing a good deed, just as the various Christian sects burned or otherwise killed one another in days gone by, fully believing that such acts were for the good of the world. Let the man who kills a hawk or even a snake first in- quire into the habits of that particular kind of hawk or snake, and usually he will find that by killing it he will be doing harm to his own interests. So it will be seen that there is much to be gained by en- couraging the study of nature in any or all her forms, and, as has already been said, there is nothing that will give the beginner an interest in the subject any more quickly or with greater certainty than the camera. Nearly every one, young or old, possesses some variety of camera, and yet so few ever attempt the portrayal of anything save people and views Let them direct their energies toward photograph- INTRODUCTION vi i ing the details of almost. any common object in na- ture, and they will be astonished to find how much there is to interest them in that object. Take a photograph of a landscape, and even though it may be beautiful, it is, after all, much like hundreds of other landscapes. But take any one of the objects represented in the view, such as the different grasses, the flourers, or the trees, and how much more inter- esting would they be if well photographed in detail It is in the hope of helping those who are mereIy beginners in the art of photographing any of the forns of nature that this little book is offered...