Educational film magazine; (19-)

NATURAL HISTORY ~j FILMS INVALUABLE FOR NATURE STUDY By M. L. Brittain state Superintendent of Schools, Georgia THOUGHTFUL observers believe that the time is not far distant when motion pictures will be used in most of our schools. In the large and populous communities one or more of the school buildings will have rooms especially con- structed for this purpose. About five-sixths of what we know must come through the eye, rather than the other senses, and educational authorities will realize this more and more with motion picture machines. In certain studies, motion pictures will be more helpful than in others. It seems to me that geography, biology and the whole field of nature study are particularly suitable for help from thi- source. The reinforcement of the lecture by means of the pic- ture will add emphasis and pleasure as well to the instruction. Travel, too, rightfully has always been regarded as a real form of education. The best substitute ever devised for the actual visit is the motion picture, with its life-like reproduction of people and scenes. For its educational value, as well as its agreeable relaxation, travelogues and travel scenes in general, it seems to me, are among our best forms of school entertainment. It is fre- quently aaid that schools are too far removed from life. It is cer- tainly true in most cases. During the regular school exercises and when the building is used for conxmunity center purposes, motion pictures can add much to the lifeless atmosphere and develop interest in the educa- tional work, as well as the community. This generation has seen the public by the millions crowd the motion picture shows. Within a few short years we shall see the schools use them for instruction and entertainment as well. A "CUCKOO" OF A PICTURE A remarkably informative motion picture about cuckoos has been shown in London, according to a report in The Lon- don Times. It was made by Edgar Chance and, besides including "the first photograph ever taken of the cuckoo when laying," resulted in "one or two new discoveries about the habits of the cuckoo." Although less than 1,000 feet in length, the film "illustrates the life of the cuckoo from the actual laying of the egg until the grown bird leaves the nest of its foster parents after murdering the other occupants." The friendly little cuckoo's procedure, when laying an egg, is shown to be as follows: The cuckoo, at any rate when laying in nests on the ground, actually sits on the nest. Before laying the bird conceals herself In a tree from which she can suitably survey the nest in which she intends to leave her egg. The trees that were chosen during the present series of observations were at distances ranging from 20 to 150 yards from the nest, according to the opportunity offered. The bird often sits motion- less for hours looking at the nest in which she Is going to deposit her egg. Then suddenly she swoops down on the nest As the cuckoo ap- proaches she picks up und holds in her beak one of the eggs already in the nest, and only then does she lay her own egg. She sits on the nest like a flash, and is rarely more than ten seconds laying her egg. Then she backs out and flics away with the stolen egg in her beak, and returns to a neighboring tree to eat the stolen egg. What happens during and after the laying of the egg is also shown in the picture, according to the following description: Tlic foster parents of the cuokew's eggs in this film are all meadow pipits or titlarks. There are some excellent pictures of the rage of these birds when the cuckoo is depositing her unwanted egg in their home, and an interesting series show "close-up" views of the young jaATURE study on the farm is one of the most appealing forms to preset visually to the child. To the city child it opens up a vast unknown worl To the farm and country-bred boy or girl it makes early impressions enduriii cuckoo in its alien home. When two or three days old, although stiL blind, the cuckoo ejects from the nest two young nestmates and ar addled egg. The foster-mother does not seem to be in the least con- cerned at this violent treatment of her own children by the intruder, and the egg is actually tipped over the edge of the nest by the younj cuckoo wliile the mother titlark is brooding the young. BIRD FILMS AT ORNITHOLOGISTS' MEETING "DIRDS of various varieties and variegated plumage flitted aboul on the movie screen at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Nineteenth and Race Streets, Philadelphia, while the assembled ornithologists attending the annual convention discussed thei characteristics. All papers read at the afternoon session were illustrated wit! animated pictures of Bird Life in Holland, also Bird Life in tfu West, while Adolph Burdet, from Overveen, Holland, discoursec on species that inhabit his home land, and T. Gilbert Pearson of New York, told of the varieties in the west. Arthur A. Allen of Ithaca, N. Y., told of the "New Use for Motion Pictures a Birds," and Thomas S. Roberts, of Minneapolis, presented somi interesting Studies of Some Familiar Birds in Motion Pictures. "NATURE'S BABIES" T^HIS one-reeler depicts the parental instincts of birds an animals. The material is said to come from a dozen diffei ent cinematographers in various parts of the world. The thr© principal contributors were Raymond L. Ditmars, curator of thi New York Zoological Society; F. Percy Smith, a London sciei tist who has been associated with Charles Urban for more ih fifteen years in the making of instructional films; and Arthur Fisher, the well-known naturalist-photographer. The mothers and offspring of the redstart, the bluebird, th( chaffinch, the bunny cottontail, the llama, the hippopotamus, th 'possum, the bear, the zebra, the kangaroo, and other animal are shown in Nature's Babies. It is apparent from this pictun that the mother-instinct is not a trait peculiar to human being but is common to all living creatures; that the animal world like the human, has its orphans and foundlings; and that lif with the so-called lower animals is the same in degree if not i| kind as that of the higher animal, man. Natvre'i Bahiei. Kincto Company of America. 1 reel.