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CHAPTER XXITI 
LOVE ON THE LEDGES 
HE ledges are thinning. There are only thirty- 
seven birds now where I counted more than a 
hundred the other day ; but some may be coming back. 
My special young one is lying on the ledge with its 
face to the cliff, and the white-eyed bird standing over 
it ; but very soon it turns, and is under the wing, as 
usual. The left wing seems the favoured one. Always, 
except once, ithas been that. The other young one is 
also lying under the wing, just as it was yesterday, 
and here, too, as always before, itis the left one. All 
these guillemots keep constantly uttering exclamations, 
as they may be called—different intonations of a deep 
“ur!” or “oor!” with an occasional much louder 
“ara!” or “hara!” of which last I have spoken. This 
has been the case since I came here. There is a great 
deal of expression in these sounds—quite as much so, 
it seems to me, as in some of our own exclamations. 
Any emotion which rises above the ordinary level of 
feeling, be it to do with fighting, feeding, loving, may 
give rise to the prolonged, deep jode/. The plain 
parent now flies in with a fish for the young one, and 
there is exactly the same scene as the last time, all the 
birds near, as well as the father and mother, jode/-ing 
excitedly. The fish is then laid on the ledge before 
the chick, who, getting it head downwards, swallows 
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