WATCHING GULLS AND SKUAS 117 



entire head. Thus, out of eighty-three herrings, only 

 fifteen had the heads to them, though the proportion 

 of the one to the other was different at different nests. 

 The heads when thus absent are entirely so — that is 

 to say, they are not to be found lying about 

 separately. That the chick should eat the head of 

 the herring by preference seems unlikely, and par- 

 ticularly when it is quite young. Yet I have seen 

 four herrings lying about a newly - hatched chick, 

 which were quite fresh and almost untouched, but 

 headless. The question, therefore, arises whether the 

 parent-bird eats the head after disgorging the whole 

 fish, or whether, in the majority of cases, it is dis- 

 gorged minus the head. Fish are, I believe, always 

 swallowed by birds which prey upon them, head 

 first, and would therefore, one would suppose, lie in 

 the gullet in this direction. If disgorged again tail 

 first, as they lay, the gills, by expanding, might offer 

 such resistance that the head would be in most cases 

 torn off. If this be so, then the skua may often 

 receive the fish headless from the gull, or, if other- 

 wise, the head would be still more likely to be torn 

 off, on a second disgorgement. This, however, one 

 would think, must be a very disagreeable process for 

 the bird disgorging, and it would seem more probable 

 that the fish can be turned or shifted in the gullet, 

 by some muscular action on its part, so as to be 

 brought up head foremost, as it descended ; but 

 whether there is any evidence as to this, I do not 

 know. If the head of the herring does not remain 

 in the gullet, then it must be eaten by the parent 

 skuas after ejection, and it would seem that they 

 looked upon this portion as their peculmin, to which 



