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IN THE SHETLANDS 199 
growth became stunted, it would be almost certain to 
fly again. 
Young kittiwakes—as no doubt the old ones, too, 
though I have not yet noticed them doing so—bathe, 
or rather play about in the sea, very prettily. They 
flap their wings in an excited way, or hold them 
spread on the water whilst turning round, or half 
round in it, then, with their wings still spread, they 
make a little spring upwards, and flop down on it 
again, like a kite falling flat, and repeat the perform- 
ance any number of times. There are staider intervals 
during which they duck and sprinkle themselves in 
the ordinary way, but this is not such a prominent 
feature as the other. I doubt if these little round- 
abouts, which seem to please the bird so much, are 
really in the nature of bathing, and the same doubt 
has been still more strongly impressed upon me in the 
case of the shag, and, to some extent, of the coot. 
To me it seems that the so-called bathing of many 
aquatic birds much more resembles an antic than 
movements made for a definite purpose—or rather 
I suspect that the one thing is in process of passing 
into the other. 
The passage, as I believe, might take place in this 
way. A land-bird bathes in water with the express 
object of cleaning itself, and therefore the energy 
which it expends in so doing is both guided and 
regulated. It is confined within a certain channel, 
which it does not leave. But when this same bird 
takes to the water—for I assume all aquatic birds to 
