sand-eel, whenever I saw it) held lengthways in the beak, with the tail drooping out to one side of it, and the head part more or less within the throat—a position which seems to suggest that it may have been swallowed or partially swallowed—whereas puffins and razorbills carry the fish they catch crosswise, with head and tail depending on either side.
I have also once or twice thought that I saw a bird which just before had had no fish in its bill, all at once carrying one. But I may well have been mistaken; and it does not seem at all likely that the birds should usually carry their fish, and thus, as will appear shortly, subject themselves to persecution, if they could disgorge it without inconvenience. With regard to the occasional absence of the head, perhaps this is sometimes cut off in catching the fish, or before it is swallowed, which may also have been the case with the herrings brought by the great skuas to their young. However, I can but give the facts, as far as I was able to observe them.
Married birds sometimes behave in a pretty manner with the fish that they bring to each other, and if coquetry be not the right word to apply to it, I know of none better. The following is my note made at the time:—
"A bird flies in with a fine sand-eel in his bill, and having run the gauntlet of the whole ledge with it, at last succeeds in bringing it to his partner. For a long time now, these two coquet together with the fish. The one that has brought it keeps biting and nibbling at it, moving his head about with it from side to side, bringing it down upon the ledge between his feet, then raising it again, seeming to rejoice in the
