legs and tail should all show distinctly, and the mane (if any), nostrils, ears, eyes, and the hairs all round the head should be microscopically sharp.

The accompanying photographs are selected as particularly illustrative of some one quality to be aimed at, apart from other not less important essentials, and the qualities which go to make up a really artistic photopicture may be ranged under these five heads:-Expression, Lighting, Position, Surroundings, and Detail.

The photograph over the title, "There's mischief a' brewing," is an exceedingly interesting study in the first-named of these qualities, expression. The four brown owls seem to have grouped themselves naturally, as if they knew what was required of them. They are looking different ways in the happiest manner, and every item of the study, even the grip of their feet on the perch, is expressive.

The fine photograph of a tiger is illustrative of the effect which can be obtained in such a study with good lighting. The task of getting mammals to assume so natural a pose as that adopted by the big cat depicted necessarily implies, in most cases, a long vigil, but even after days of waiting, Mr. Bolton tells me, it is extremely rare to get the lighting so successful as this. The reader will observe how much the picture is helped by the touch of light round the ear, on the back and the paws.

An excellent example of good position is shown in the leopard “On Guard," and its pose is really perfect, as it lies vigilant amidst the rocks and tree-stumps, the effect of latent power and ferocity being heightened rather than diminished by the fact that only the powerful head and neck and the curve of the back are so far revealed to us, with just a reminder that his mate is not far off, the gleam of spots through the tree-stumps telling of another leopard sleeping in security.

The picture of the kangaroos furnishes an admirable example of an ideal background and surroundings. There is the same difficulty here as with the lighting. The artist with the camera cannot place the animals against the most suitable background, but must wait for the opportunity. It would be difficult to imagine anything finer than the background in this picture, the fall of the ground in soft curves, the hazy distance with its suggestion of heavy foliage, in the middle distance.

There is a wonderful definiteness of detail in the photograph of the corded poodle, "Champion Achille," which also may be described as a model of position. The dog is standing alone, without collar or chain, and the tail is quite naturally carried "up." Mr. Bolton tells me that this photograph was taken in a London back-garden, on an old packing-case, with a blanket for a background. One may well take this as an evidence that the better the workman the more simple the tools required. There is an almost "painty" effect in the mass of photographic detail in the heavy black coat, showing extreme care in the development of the negative, a coal-black animal taken against a more or less white background being about the acme of difficulty in photographic development. The dense mass of hair presents an almost microscopic sharpness, the "top-knot"

is carefully tied back to show the eyes and face, and the whole study well illustrates the strength and fidelity with which the presentment of any animal can be recorded, if one knows how to do it.

An interesting photograph is included of the studio which Mr. Bolton had built for him in London, especially constructed for animal work, so that birds, monkeys, and other small creatures could be turned loose in it and photographed on branches of trees, etc., of which the four owls are one example, and built with such attention to even minor details, that the cemented floor was coloured a deep grey in order not to reflect light on his subjects. For many years Mr. Gambier Bolton's energies have been entirely devoted to his zoological and photographical work, with the result that, in addition to the publication of hundreds of his photographs throughout the ordinary channels, they have been exhibited before most of the big societies, the Royal Society, Linnæan, and Zoological, not to mention "Royalties" in many parts of the world. But during this period he has found time to deliver popular lectures throughout Great Britain on Natural History, illustrated by lantern slides from his photographs without interfering with his journeys all over the world in the search of rare specimens, and the portraiture of wild animals in their homes. Only about one-third of his animal photographs have been taken at the London Zoo, which is unhappily much less adequately supported financially than many foreign collections, notably those at Hamburg and Antwerp, which are able to purchase rare and extra good specimens at high prices which our Society cannot afford to do. But Mr. Gambier Bolton has not rested content with securing studies of caged animals, but has twice visited Southern and Central Africa, and most foreign lands such as Canada, North America, the Hawaian Islands, Japan, China, Java, the Malay Peninsula, Burmah, and India, undeterred by severe malarial fevers and other illnesses to which he has often fallen a victim.

F'

ALISON.

BY MARY BEAUMONT.

ILLUSTRATED BY W. CUBITT COOKE.

IFTY years and more ago, nay, reaching backwards into the last century, there must have been a female population of sylphs, of nymphs in England-women who glided about the world in a very different fashion from their ample and fine-statured descendants. For two or three generations of authors the word sylph-like was descriptive of a heroine.

I know what the word means, and have a love for those yellow-leaved romances, because the mistress of my heart many years later was a survival of such women. She was a sylph. She was so slight in figure and airy in movement that I felt grossly corporeal beside her, and I was but an ordinary well-developed young Englishman. At that time I thought myself a poet, because of a certain knack I had of rhyming: the ideas were commonplace enough, yet scarcely more commonplace than the rhymes. But I may say of myself, that I loved good poetry, and when I first read Tennyson's "Maud," I concluded that he had met the maid of my heart in dreams. I, too,

"Was haunted by the starry head

Of her whose gentle will had changed my fate,"

and was fed in her presence

"With honeyd rain and delicate air."

The name of my sylph was Alison. She lived with her grandmother, an elder Alison, in a rambling white house two miles from the town of Wodely, with no near neighbours but a few farm labourers. The next village, Madden, on the other side, was a good three miles away, and the broad river running through Wodely made a wide curve round Whiteside, the name of both her home, and the hamlet, in which it was set. I liked her to be thus separated from common humanity, the loneliness suited my conception of her, as one apart and unique. For myself, I lived in the town: for her, the open country was a fit abiding place, and to walk out to see her three or four times a week, a charming pilgrimage of affection. The town I felt to be the proper environment for a man : it accorded with his masculine habits and modes of thought, and its amusements enlivened his work, his absorbing and exhausting work.

Alison never took this view, nor did Mrs. Granby, her grandmother. For them the town was a place of dangers, the dwellers therein needing a spiritual armour to be acquired by few. I rallied them both upon this misconception, but I knew the cause of it, and respected it. Alison's father, a brilliant and able man, had lived in London for much of his married life, and had gone down in the waters of ruin and despair, taking with

him two broken hearts, his mother's and his wife's. His mother, bred from the strenuous people of the north, lived on, but the wife, tender and delicate, died, and Alison, with her grandmother's spirit and her mother's face, came to Whiteside to the old house.

To me the tragedy was very simple; it was not due to the dangers of the Metropolis, but to the weakness of the man. I reflected that it is given to some to be clever and strong. If I glanced at myself for a moment-well-I was but five-and-twenty! I, at least, forgave myself.

It was on a day in June that I remember meditating deeply on Alison's future and mine. I was going to see her, and as I strode along the white road, between the masses of gorse in bloom, I thought of the improvements I would make in Whiteside. I had not a doubt of the fortune which would necessarily be mine when that time came. A cloud at this point obscured the sun, all at once I remembered that I had been losing a good deal of money lately at cards.

Card-playing was a new amusement for me. It scarcely seemed a fitting recreation for a lawyer, and, indeed, I had yet more serious misgivings from time to time. Still, youth needs excitement I assured myself, and I could pull myself up any day. My people had gone North after my father's death, and I really had nothing interesting to do on certain evenings of the week-Mrs. Granby having laid down rules and regulations concerning my visits to Whiteside. A man must have friends.

"The luck is sure to turn," I remarked to a rabbit that ran suddenly out into the road. The sun again streamed warm upon my back, and the sweet nutty smell of the gorse filled the air, all Nature was gay and glad.

And before me, on a patch of heathery land, between the road and Whiteside, just where the golden hedges ended, stood Alison, my sweetheart! The morning wind blew her hair from her forehead, and the light dress from her pretty feet.

She ran towards me laughing, then she stopped. I stopped too-to watch her and wait for her. But she would not come. It was characteristic of her, the impulse and the little reserve. I did not understand it; I was not reserved myself, but the quality was captivating in her.

"No, no," she cried, "you must come to me," and she looked at me with eyes that drew me and yet defied.

It was Whit-Monday, I remember, and the whole day was mine. Even the legal mind has its few relaxations, and the work of the law had not yet dulled my appetite for a holiday.

We breakfasted in the porch, in the light that was colour as well as light the sunshine through the green transparent leaves-and afterwards we established ourselves there to read. Mrs. Granby insisted that Alison, too, should take a holiday from her self-appointed tasks. I tilted my chair backwards that I might look unobserved at the girl in the great cane chair beside me. Her lap was full of some white fleecy stuff, which quickly increased in bulk under the play of the slim, small hands. to expound Browning to her, but I could not read. chatted, I took in afresh the uncommon beauty of her face. new to me, and whatever blame of many kinds attached to me, then and

I had intended As we happily

It was always