IN THE SHETLANDS 179 
bird continuing to stand where it had been, and I had 
been watching them up almost to that very second, 
my head over the ledge all the time. Even could 
the bird which had petted the chick have flown off 
without my noticing it—whichI do not think it could 
have done—it would have been impossible, surely, 
for it to have caught a fish and returned in so very 
short atime. The chick, therefore, appears to have 
been petted by a third bird, not being either of its 
parents, for the white-eyed one stood apart all the 
time, so that even if it had not been distinguished in 
this way I could not have confused it with either of 
the other two. This is interestiag, I think, if it is 
really the case, for here, as with terns, we see the 
beginning of what might in time lead to something 
similar, in a social community of birds, to what we see 
in those of insects—the absorption, that is to say, of 
the individualised parental instinct into the generalised 
one of the whole community. 
It is natural, at present, we will suppose, for every 
pair of birds in acolony of terns or guillemots to feel 
affection for, and to tend, their own young. Were this 
affection, and the active expression of it, to extend to 
the young of other members of the community, then, 
as every pair of birds would probably be able to supply 
the wants of more than its own young, a lesser number 
than the whole community would be sufficient for 
nursery work, leaving the others free for—what we 
cannot say, but nature might evolve her product out 
of the material thus placed at her disposal. Some 
