170 BIRD WATCHING 



the brilliant yellow gule which matches in colour the 

 naked outer skin at the base of the mandibles becomes 

 plainly visible. This habit of opening the bill as it 

 were at each other I have remarked in several sea- 

 birds, and also that in all or most of these cases the 

 interior part thus disclosed is brightly or, at least, 

 pleasingly coloured. 



Bathing. But whether the following be bathing 

 or a kind of aquatic exercise either of or not of the 

 nature of sexual display, I will leave to the reader 

 to decide. Birds which live habitually in the water 

 do yet bathe, I believe, in the proper sense of the 

 word. 



" The cormorant, when bathing, raises himself a little 

 out of the water whilst still maintaining a horizontal 

 position, and in this attitude, supported as it would 

 seem on the feet, he commences violently to beat the 

 sea with his wings, moving also the tail and, I think, 

 treading down with the feet upon the water. The 

 sea is soon beaten all into foam, and when he has 

 accomplished this, desisting, he begins to sport about 

 in the whiteness of it in an odd excited manner, 

 making little turns and darts and often being just 

 submerged, but no more. He does this for a few 

 minutes, stops, and commences again after a short 

 interval, and thus continues alternately sporting and 

 resting for a quarter of an hour or, perhaps, even as 

 long as half-an-hour. I think this must be bathing 

 or washing, for other birds act in the same way, 

 though less markedly, so that it does not occur to 

 one to wonder what they are about. The little black 

 guillemot, for instance, beats the water briskly and 

 rapidly with his wings, but whereas the cormorant 



