WATCHING SHAGS AND GUILLEMOTS 195 



on the bare rock, but sometimes they will pick up 

 and play with a feather, and I have seen one carry 

 some fibres of grass or root, which had perhaps fallen 

 or been blown from a kittiwake's nest, to its partner, 

 and lay them down as if showing her. In such acts 

 we may perhaps see a lingering trace of a lost nest- 

 building instinct. They walk, as a rule, with the 

 whole shank, as well as the actual foot resting on 

 the surface of the rock, but sometimes they will draw 

 themselves up so that they stand upon the foot, or 

 rather the toes, alone, just in the way in which a 

 penguin does, and in this attitude they can both walk 

 and run. Anatomically speaking, the shank is, I 

 believe, a part of the foot, corresponding to our own 

 heel, and functionally it is so, too, in the guillemot, 

 as well as in the razorbill and puffin. It is interest- 

 ing, therefore, to see the occasional assumption of an 

 attitude which in the penguins has become habitual. 

 Their ordinary walking attitude is with the head held 

 erect, but they often sink it to or below the breast, 

 at the same time craning the neck right forward, 

 which gives them a grotesque and uncanny appear- 

 ance, like one of the evil creatures in Retche's outlines 

 of Faust. Again, one of them will sometimes throw 

 the head and neck slightly forward, and at the same 

 time jerking the wings sharply behind the back, will, 

 after remaining with them thus " set " for a moment, 

 run briskly forward, giving them a vigorous shaking. 

 But in spite of wings and beaks, and a k\v other 

 dissimilarities, it is of men that one has to think when 

 watching these erect, white-waistcoated, funny little 

 bodies. Indeed, they are much like us, for they fight, 

 love, breed, eat, and stand upright, which is most of 



