In 1892 Richard and Cherry Kearton took the first ever photograph of a bird's nest with eggs. Realising the camera's potential to reveal secrets of the natural world, they resolved to make the best possible records of their discoveries in the habits and behaviour of birds and other creatures. This study concerns itself with the lives and partnership of the Keartons, especially their role in the history of nature photography; their attitudes to and interaction with nature; and the status of invention in their work. Reproduced throughout the book are the remarkable photographs that they declared as having been taken 'direct from nature'.