Photographing Grizzlies. (Spokene Correspondence Minneapolis Journal )

Otago Witness, Issue 2744, 17 October 1906, Page 75

Photographing Grizzlies. (Spokene Correspondence Minneapolis Journal )

Three gmzly bears performed stunts about a patent picture -taking device this week: tha*i completely set at naught the efforts of W. H. Wright, the hunter, naturalist, and author, to have them take a flashlight snapshot of themselves. Mr Wright has returned to ,his home in this city after a fortnight spent in the haunt*, of the grizzly in the den.-<o timber of the Jackeon Hole country atthV edge of Yellowstone Paik, vowing he will perfect another automatic camera by which to circumverdt wily Brmn

"The grizzlx^ig. the s-harpent animal that walks jon _f«ur Jegg," said h<?-. "The 'common -Iseair is an unmitigated idiot compared with him. Although I have spent 2\ yearo hunting grizzlies and have traversed the Rockies from Alaska to Mexico City in my quest, I learned more about the cunning of the grizzly last week than I ever dreamed.

"I had stretched a tiny black thread acrctes it well-b*>aten trail, in the expectation that in the dark they would walk against it, thereby releasing a spring that woukl set off a flashlight power in a camera, which I had stationed a few yards away on the windwarr. side of the trail. I hid in the branches 150 ft farther to the windward and awaited developments "It had hpconie so dark that I could barely discern an object at that distance, when three bears came down the (rail, single file. I was conjrr.? f ulating myself en the magnificent photograph I was about to get wlkti the foremost bear sniffed, halted two or three feet from that black thread and proceedod to extend his nose cautiously toward it. He had scented a No. 40 unen thread when it was so dark he could not possibly <-€<? it.

"The second bear, curious to know the causj of the pause and unable to pass the

front one on the narrow trail, placed his front paws on the back of the leader and peered over his shoulder at the strange smellms? object. The rear bear, equally inquisitive, mounted the back of the second in- the same way and stretched hie neck In the yame manner. "The lea dor touched the thread gingerly with hia rose. Suddenly there was a flash and a puff and the whole scene was brilliantly illuminated. Instead of running away, the bears looked at the sky and then at each other as much as to inquire why i\*Ts sh-julfl be a flash of lightning on euoh cVclear night, To my infinite sorrow, an imperfection in my photographing apparatus caused the picture of these three bears, with paws on each other's backs, much as elephant.-s are trained to do in a circus, to be c o diru as to be usedess for half-tone reproduction. "To go ahead with the story, when those .bears had recovered from their surprise they proceeded to traoo that thread to its source. Fortunately, instead of following it towards _thp camera, they nosed along toward the 'end which was attached to a spool. I had taken the pains to bury that spool in the iground. but they dug it up in less time than "it takes to tell it. Then they held a .aecioiis powwow o\er the spool, accompasred by much sage shaking of heads. After a time, they turned about and beat an orderly retreat up the trail in the direction whence they had come."

In all, Mr Wright saw 30 bears approach that thread during his more than 10 days of patient effort to get a photograph. Of that number not one crossed the thread. Four times was tho trap sprung by Mr Bruin, producing a spark in a sma'l battery attached to the pan containing tho flashlight powder. One excollent snapshot \vag the result. The other flashes proved inadequate, owing to insufficient powcer, producing only a dim outline- of the- grizzlies that had touched the thread with their hosts through curiosity. Not one of them had done it carelessly. #

A t;ood d^al of careful work is now being done bj ornithologists in collecting particulars of bird migration in England, and the study i.3 specially interesting because Great Brits'Jn is more favoured than any (,ther area of the same size in the world by rhe^e aben emigrants The keepers of the lightships and lighthouses, from whom, than-ks to Trinity House, a vast amount of information has Wen co'lected in past years are now supplemented by inland observers, who now number 172; and in the last publication.of the Britis-h Ornithologists' Club it is mentioned that 15,000 records were made. Twenty-nine species of birde are under observation, and maps are made showing not only their "ports of arrival," btit ■ the successive stag-es by which they •pr&bftlily travel up or across country. Re«l water butterflks spread their lovely winajs in the clear wavelets df the blue Mediterranean. Their scientific name is Ptere-poda, or wing-footed. The commonest is perhaps the "boat butterfly." His body seems formed round a tiny brovvnith kernel, the size of a grain of wheat, and is covered with" a shell soft as gristle and almost transparent His wings are large, round, and clear as glass— ?o clear that before they can be examined they mu^t be .put in a saucer of water against a black -ground. The ehcll'is so Icc&e that a mere touch separates it from the body. All tlie sea butterflies have on their tongues rows of strong-pointed hooks. They are all fie sh-&a tens. It is wonderful to watch through the transparent shell and almost equally transparent body the motions of tho heart. These butterflies lay eggs, just like the land ones, and, like the land ones, are fond of warmth and light.