own head on one side in order to do so, so that the rest of the long bill projects sideways beyond the chick's head without touching it. In this connection, and whilst the chick's head is quite visible, little, if any more than the beak being within the gape of the parent bird, the latter bends the head down and makes that particular action as of straining so as to bring something up, which one is familiar with in pigeons. This process is gone through several times before the bird standing on the ledge flies away, to return again in a quarter of an hour with a piece of seaweed, which is laid on the nest." Here again, as throughout, the sexes of the birds can only be inferred or merely guessed at. Both share in incubation, both feed the young, both (I think) bring seaweed to the nest, and both are exactly alike.
As the chicks become older they thrust the head and bill farther and farther down the throat of the parent bird, and at last to an astonishing extent. Always, however, it appeared to me that the parent bird brought up the food into the chick's bills in some state of preparation, and was not a mere passive bag from which the latter pulled out fish in a whole state. There were several nests all in unobstructed view, and so excellent were my glasses that, practically, I saw the whole process as though it had been taking place on a table in front of me. The chicks, on withdrawing their heads from the parental throat, would often slightly open and close the mandibles as though still tasting something, in a manner which one may describe as smacking the bill; but on no occasion did I observe anything projecting from the bill when this was withdrawn, as one would expect
