The Nest of a Fatu-Liva

The Cruise of the Kawa: Wanderings in the South Seas was a tongue-in-cheek travel book presented to the public as the real-life adventures of Walter E. Traprock and his band of compatriots on the (non-existent) Filbert Islands in the South Pacific. The book included this picture of the nest of the bizarre Fatu-Liva, a bird that supposedly lay square, spotted eggs. The caption noted: "Skeptics have said that it would be impossible to lay a square egg. To which the author is justly entitled to say: 'The camera never lies.'" The picture demonstrates, satirically, that a caption can falsify a picture just as well as darkroom tricks can. The square eggs are, of course, dice.