IN THE SHETLANDS 99 
down upon them from the edge of the cliff, at a 
height of not more than twenty feet or so, I was 
enabled to see the whole process. Judging by their 
actions, any one would have said that these birds had 
a chick, and were feeding it ; and calling up the many 
such scenes that I was witness of when last here, 
I can think of no point in which they differed from 
this present one, except in the presence of the chick. 
This curious make-believe, or whatever it may be 
called, lasted for some little time, but at last, I think, 
one of the birds ate the fish. Between them, at any 
rate, it swam out of the ken of my glasses. 
And now, what is the meaning of all this? Many 
birds, of course, are in the habit of feeding one 
another—conjugally or loverly—or the male is in 
the habit of feeding the female, and this seems the 
most obvious and natural explanation here. I do 
not, however, think that this is a special trait of the 
guillemot, and inasmuch as there are but few young 
birds now, it is quite a rare thing to see a bird flying 
in with a fish in its bill. I believe, myself, that when 
a childless one does so, it is with the idea of feeding 
the chick—the last one, the one that it remembers 
and pictures as still on the ledge—in its mind ; and it 
is the more easy for me to think this, because I feel 
sure that this habit of conjugal feeding has grown 
out of the feeding of the young, and I can even 
imagine that, by one of those mental transitions 
which with animals (as with savages) are so quick 
and so easy, the bird offering the food, does, 
