IN THE SHETLANDS 51 
extreme terror—which one might naturally suppose 
them to feel. This is a puzzling thing to understand 
—at least, to me it is. An aquatic bird that swims 
and dives all as easily as it breathes, and which has 
just before plunged into the water from a considerable 
height, stands now upon a rock but little above its 
surface, and watches a boat, the object of its dread, 
coming nearer and nearer, till at last it stops in front 
of it, and the hand is stretched out to seize and take, 
without ever escaping, which it might easily do in the 
way that it has just before done. What is the ex- 
planation? We may suppose, perhaps, that these 
young birds have not yet got to look upon the ocean 
as a place of long abode, that they enter it only with 
the idea of getting quickly out again, and that the 
rock is as yet so much more their true home that 
they cling to it in preference, and may even have 
a feeling of safety in being there. But if this last 
were the case, why should they leave it in the first 
instance? There would be no difficulty in under- 
standing the matter if they refused to take the sea at 
all, but having done so once, it seems strange that 
they should so fear or dislike to, again. Possibly the 
having soon to come out—as being impelled to do so 
—and finding themselves no better off, but menaced 
as before, may give a feeling of inevitability and 
hopelessness of escape, sufficient to take away the 
power of effort. But this I do not believe—despair 
hardly belongs to animals, and if it did, imminent 
peril, with at least a temporary refuge at hand, ought 
