WATCHING SHAGS AND GUILLEMOTS 185 



that has fed it shifts it again to the other, who receives 

 it with equal care, and bending down over it, appears 

 for it is now again invisible to help or assist it in 

 some way. It would be no wonder if the chick had 

 wanted assistance, for the fish was a very big one for 

 so small a thing, and it would seem as if he swallowed 

 it bodily. After this the chick is again treated as 

 an egg by the bird that has before had charge of him 

 that is to say, he is sat upon, apparently, just as 

 though he were to be incubated or suppressed, like 

 the guinea-pigs in ' Alice in Wonderland.' " 



On account of the closeness with which the chick 

 is guarded by the parent birds, and the way in which 

 they both stand over it, it is difficult to make out 

 exactly how it is fed ; but I think the fish is either 

 dropped at once on the rock or dangled a little, for it 

 to seize hold of. It is in the bringing up and looking 

 after of the chick that one begins to see the meaning 

 of the sitting guillemots being always turned towards 

 the cliff, for from the moment that the egg is hatched, 

 one or other of the parent birds interposes between 

 the chick and the edge of the parapet. Of course I 

 cannot say that the rule is universal, but I never saw 

 a guillemot incubating with its face turned towards 

 the sea, nor did I ever see a chick on the seaward side 

 of the parent bird who was with it. It seems probable 

 that the relative positions of the sitting bird and the 

 egg would be continued from use after the latter had 

 become the young one ; and if we suppose that in a 

 certain number of cases where these positions were 

 reversed the chick perished from running suddenly 

 out from under the parent and falling over the edge 

 of the rock, we can understand natural selection 



