a 
CHAPTER! XV 
NEW DEVELOPMENTS 
T is curious to see the guillemot-ledges so thronged 
now, when everything speaks of the departure of 
summer, if that, indeed, can be said to depart which 
has never, apparently, arrived. As I said before, there 
are very few young birds to be seen, and since the 
sexes in the guillemot are alike, one might think, at 
first, that the mothers had all gone off with their 
chicks, leaving only the males on the ledges. This, 
however, cannot be the case, since there is much cos- 
setting, and sometimes a touch of “the wren,” and 
“small gilded fly,” of King Lear—I trust I express 
myself clearly. 
I was beginning to think that there were no young 
guillemots at all here now, but just at this moment a 
bird flies in with a fish in its bill, and, running up to 
another one, with it, the chick immediately appears 
from under a projecting cranny of the ledge, where it 
has been concealed, and receives and eats the fish. It 
is the usual thing—the wings of the two parents 
drooped, like a tent, in which the little thing stands, 
and both of them equally interested. This chick 
seems of considerable size—as guillemot chicks go—is 
properly feathered, and the plumage has the colouring 
of the grown birds, except that the throat and chin 
are white as well as the breast—a continuity of white, 
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