192 THE GULLS 



its beak at the beak of the parent. On one occasion I saw one 

 adult and two young, all three side by side, and facing the rock 

 face. Both the young were bobbing their heads, and the one nearest 

 the parent bird turned at intervals to peck lightly at its beak. The 

 second, however, kept on bobbing at the rock face, and continued this 

 unprofitable exercise for some minutes before it turned to make a 

 dab which did not even reach its mark. At the same time, on a 

 lower ledge, another young bird kept on bobbing to the rock 

 without once turning its head, while near by its parent stood preening 

 itself. They were both at it some minutes later, one bobbing, the 

 other preening, and I left them at it. The young will also bob in the 

 same way when no other bird is near. 



The actual feeding of the young by the parent I will illustrate 

 by a fairly typical incident, noted at the time of its occurrence. 

 A young bird was standing in front of its mother it may have been 

 the father bobbing its head, occasionally making dabs at her beak. 

 At length she opened her beak, and the young put its beak and the 

 front part of its head inside and felt about. It seemed to get a small 

 amount of something out of her throat and swallowed it down. After 

 two or three more similar attempts, it pulled out what seemed like 

 a large sand-eel, which I saw distinctly in its beak, and which it took 

 some time to swallow down. It then continued to bob and dab. 



The parent, as far as my observation extends, does not disgorge the 

 food ; it brings it up the gullet far enough to be reached by the young, 

 and, frequently, it appears unable or unwilling to keep it in position, 

 for the attempt is followed by visible gulping movements, which 

 are similar to the movements of the young when actually swallowing. 

 These swallowing movements resemble those already described pro- 

 visionally as domestic amenities (p. 187). How or why the act of 

 swallowing should have come to serve, as appears to be the case, 

 the secondary or derived purpose of a gesture, and why this should 

 have occurred rather in the case of the kittiwake than of other 

 species, is difficult to divine. 



