IN: THE SHETLANDS Tos 
therefore, over the whole under surface. Moreover, 
from each eye to the base of the bill, on the cor- 
responding side, there is a thick black line. The 
wings, which I have seen it flap, are small, with the 
quills not sufficiently developed for flight—at least, 
I should think not. Some time after this I saw a 
smaller chick which had been hidden hitherto behind 
the two parents. The non-locomotion of both was 
as marked a feature as ever—for this struck me very 
much the last time I was here. The smaller one 
I could never make out again. The other was for 
a long time invisible behind its slight escarpment, 
and then, though it came out and was active where 
it stood, it did not move more than an inch or so 
beyond it, or in any direction. 
As this chick evidently could not fly, it, as evidently, 
could not have left the ledge, and returned to it. 
Imagine, therefore, that the chicks are conveyed down 
by the parents, in this state, as it is asserted that they 
are, and the emptiness of the ledges, of young birds, 
is explained; for by the time they could fly they would 
have forgotten all about them, even if they were not 
far away, as they probably by that time would be. 
But if they wait till they can fly before leaving the 
ledges, why do they not fly back to them, and then 
backwards and forwards, like the young kittiwakes, or 
the young shags? Why do they not accompany their 
parents when ¢hey return, since their parents will 
not stay with them upon the sea? All this is ex- 
plained upon the supposition that the parent guillemot 
