i8o BIRD WATCHING 



nest. It is that portion of the throat which lies just 

 below the bird's gape (I am here speaking of the 

 shag), including both the feathered and the naked skin 

 between the cleft of the lower mandible, and extend- 

 ing to the sides of the neck, which is principally 

 twitched or quivered. 



The above, perhaps, is a trivial observation, but no 

 one can watch these birds very closely without being 

 struck by the habit. 



Young shags are, at first, naked and black also 

 blind, as I was able to detect through the glasses. 

 Afterwards the body becomes covered with a dusky 

 grey down, and then every day they struggle more and 

 more into the likeness of their parents. They soon 

 begin to imitate the grown-up postures, and it is a 

 pretty thing to see mother and young one sitting 

 together with both their heads held stately upright, 

 or the little woolly chick standing up in the nest and 

 hanging out its thin little featherless wings, just as 

 mother is doing, or just as it has seen her do. At 

 other times they lie sprawling together either flat 

 or on their sides. They are good-tempered and 

 playful, seize playfully hold of each other's bills, 

 and will often bite and play with the feathers of 

 their parent's tail. In fact, they are a good deal 

 like puppies, and the heart goes out both to 

 them and to their loving, careful, assiduous mother 

 and father. As pretty domestic scenes are enacted 

 daily and hourly on this stern old rock, within the 

 very heave and dash of the waves, as ever in 

 Arcadia, or in any neat little elegant bower where 

 the goddess of such things presides or does not: 

 The sullen sea itself might smile to watch its 



