164 THE BIRD WATCHER 
again. She meets himyjode/s over him a little, and 
soon they are lying close pressed together, as before. 
I have now to mention that the parent who, up to 
the present, has taken most charge of the chick, and 
which I have therefore been calling the mother, has 
the curious narrow white circle, or rather ellipse, 
round the eye, with a straight line, also white, pro- 
jecting backwards from the backward corner of it. 
The other one has no such mark, or rather he has 
it without the white feathers, for, as I believe is the 
case with all these birds, the same thing is represented 
by a depression or groove in the plumage, which is 
especially noticeable along the backward-running line. 
If we suppose the white mark to be an adornment 
gained by sexual selection, what are we to think of 
the depression which preceded it? Is it sufficiently 
obvious to be noticed by the birds in each other, and 
if so, can it be supposed to be pleasing to them? 
Considering how close together guillemots stand on 
the ledges, I should think it must be as plain to their 
observation as a parting down the hair is to ours. 
Hair-partings are admired by us, and so, too, are 
gashes on the face, even in intellectual Germany. 
But though the mark may not represent any special 
sexual adornment, the white colour which so power- 
fully emphasises it may, and this, perhaps, has come 
about owing to the nipping in of the feathers, along 
the line of depression, having stopped the flow of the 
colouring pigment. 
The little chick, now, pushing, as it seems, against 
