chick, as I noticed, now, and several times afterwards, seemed glad to go to any of them. One it ran up to, and this bird behaved exactly as the first one had done, jodel-ing over it, and caressing it with its bill. Now, if this last bird was the chick's parent, the one that had a little before done the same thing, and still sat in the same place on another part of the rock, could not also be, for that the eyed bird who had fetched it away must have been either its father or mother, is a thing indubitable, not only by reason of that one act, but also on account of its general conduct both before and afterwards. One, therefore, of the two birds that caressed the chick must have been a stranger to it, but the fact is that both were, for whilst the last that had done so was still on the ledge, and but shortly afterwards, in flew a bird from the sea with a fish in his bill, and fed the chick. Now, I cannot, as far as eyesight goes, affirm that this bird was not the one that the chick had first gone to, and by whom it had been kindly received; but that one of a pair of guillemots should sit for a long time, not only by itself, but far removed from the chick and the other one, and that afterwards, when the chick had gone to it, this other one, its own mate, should excitedly fetch it away, is a thing quite out of accordance with all I have yet seen of the domestic relations of these birds. It is true that, in this case, a motive can be imagined for the chick's excursion, but whilst my later observations have shown me that, as the chick gets older, it does move about, I have never
