A distinguished pioneer of scientific filmmaking, Percy Smith was born in London in 1880. Working as a clerk at the Board of Education, Percy began to photograph the natural world around him, nursing a lifelong fascination with all manner of plant and animal life.  His close-up photograph of a bluebottle's tongue caught the attention of film entrepreneur Charles Urban, who quickly began to exhibit Percy's work in London theatres. After the considerable success of sequences such as The Balancing