108 THE BIRD WATCHER 
association to work yr. But, there | arey certain 
primitive interests, as we may call them, connected 
with food, and the family and sexual relations, which 
are very strong in animals, and in regard to which 
the memory, when put in action, may be equally 
strong. Who shall say that a man, returning to his 
home at the end of the day, sees in his mind’s eye a 
clearer picture of what awaits him there than does the 
bird flying to its nest, or the bee to its hive? Now 
could anything, by association, call up this picture, 
suddenly, in the bird’s or insect’s mind, they would, 
no doubt, act for the moment as though it were real 
—as did Darwin’s dog when he called him after five 
years’ absence; and thus I can understand one of these 
guillemots flying with a fish to its ledge, to feed its 
chick, although its chick were no longer there. It 
might be so; I can see no reason against it. In the 
actions of these two birds there may lie—for me, 
now, there does lie—a great psychological interest. 
Suggestive they certainly are. I shall keep this in my 
mind and watch the ledges more closely. 
The larger of the two young guillemots is now 
frequently flapping its wings, and latterly it has been 
jumping up, at the same time, though always it keeps 
in one place by its mother, and does not run about. 
Mother and chick often delectate themselves by nib- 
bling the tip of each other’s bills. And now there 
comes a surprise. For the first time that I have ever 
seen, the chick moves right away from where it was, 
leaving its father and mother. It travels along the 
