The Nickelodeon (Feb-Sep 1909)

26 THE NICKELODEON. Vol. II, No. 1. Bird Motion by Cmematograpli By Frank M. Cnapman IT is said that the first moving-picture apparatus was designed by a certain Dr. Fitton, who, about 1826, made a small disk, on one side of which was drawn a bird and on the other a cage. When the disk was revolved with sufficient rapidity the bird appeared to be in the cage. Whether or not we have here the first demonstration of that persistence of vision which makes the illusion of cinematography possible, the present-day photographer aims to depict birds not in cages, but out of them. Armed with camera and note book, he has penetrated'to every corner of our land and many places more remote, bringing home not merely collections of specimens, but series of graphic, accurate records, which both for purposes of demonstration and future reference are incomporably more valuable, convincing and educational than any information we have ever had before. The development of this method of recording observations in bird life has been the distinctive phase of ornithological research of the past two decades. I recall a meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union, held in New York City in 1889, at which a committee was appointed to make a special efifort to secure lantern slides of birds from nature, to be exhibited at the next congress of the union. This was held in Washington the following year, when about a dozen mediocre slides of birds and their nests, chiefly the latter, were shown. Now hundreds of remarkable slides are exhibited at each annual session, and in surprising contrast to the Washington program of 1890 might be mentioned a comparatively recent one, which contained papers, elaborately illustrated with slides, on the birds of a before unexplored portion of the Florida Everglades, of a rarely visited Nevada lake; the valleys and coastal islands of California, and of far distant Laysan Island, 1,400 miles west of Hawaii. Hitherto we have been content to catch the form and pose of our quarry, but to this we would now add its motions. Our pictures of deer and moose and caribou must show the actions of the wild animal in its haunts, our birds must fly or swim or walk, or care for their young. In short, we must capture now not only the image but the actions of birds and beasts, and this can be done only with the cinematograph. As yet only three or four men have attempted to do this in America, where moving pictures are associated chiefly with vaudeville and "nickelodeons." In England, however, the possibilities of cinematography in the study of nature are more fully realized, and thousands of feet of film, showing in action all the more important forms of life from micro-organisms through insects to reptiles, birds, and mammals, have been made and are available to the teacher. It is, at least, some satisfaction for us to know that the leader of this work in London is an American ; but our pride in his achievements receives a blow when we learn that he sought the English market after failing to find one at home. Personally, I find that the whole question of bird photography is revealed in a new light, as subjects which I had long ago checked from tlie list now appear to be worth renewed study with this later, more highly developed, apparatus. The robins whicii nested in my hedge the past summer would not have tempted nic to expose a plate in the regulation camera, but the possibilities of the motion picture made them eminently desirable game, and from a blind I secured a series of pictures which, when projected, show in an almost startling manner the return of the parent to the nest, the immediate upstretching of tremulous necks bearing heads which seem to be only wide-open mouths, the plunging of food into these yawning cavities, and the details of nest sanitation. On Gardiner's Island, where, because of the protection afforded by an insular home, fishhawks build upon the ground, I secured pictures of these birds returning to their nests ; every wingstroke as the birds approached, checked their flight, hovered, and dropped being rendered with a precision Aluybridge would have envied. On this same island studies of terns or dainty seaswallows were made, the work as usual being done from a portable, quickly erected blind, without which one can not reach the necessary point of vantage. Nervous, agile, graceful creatures, they all leave their eggs and spring into the air so frequently one marvels that the task of incubation is ever accomplished. And so the film gives them bounding as one bird into the air, scattering like snowflakes, quickly gathering, and lightly dropping back to their eggs again. Only their characteristic cries are needed to make the picture one of absolute realism. But the supreme experience of my single season with a cinematograph was found on Pelican Island, in Florida. During the many visits which I have made to this remarkable bird city I have exposed hundreds of plates, depicting essentially every phase of the pelicans' varied home Hfe; but the possibilities here oflfered for the use of the cinematograph seemed so unusual that I have been induced to begin all over again and record the entire series of pelican activities with this apparatus. The work of ten years can not be duplicated in one, but the results already attained prove beyond question the applicability of cinematography to bird study and its value in bringing a wholly adequate representation of bird life into the lecture room. The birds on the water were photographed b} fixing the camera on the bow of a boat, but once on the island it was taken within an artificial blind and placed on the exceptionally stable tripod it requires. From this -point of vantage pictures were secured of more intimate phases of the pelicans' domestic affairs, as they sit quietly on their nests, engage in the seemingly endless task of preening their plumage, leave for the fishing grounds, or return with food for their offspring. Then ensues the astonishing operation which gives the young pelican his first experience in fishing. Plunging his head and neck to the shoulders into the pouch of the long-suft'ering parent, he prods about there with so much violence and flapping of wings that one might well believe he was attempting to enter the old bird bodily. On emerging, . the fulness of his crop shows where he has stored the results of his explorations ; but occasionallv he captures a fish too long to be ciimpletely encompassed, when he sits quietly with the tail projecting from his bill, waiting for the head to digest. I captured, too, a moving image of the inimitable pelican yawn, one of the most expressive actions in bird life. The bird, after almost everting its pounch, shoots its bill skyward by a succession of jerks