COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS 
Selous,s who has watched sea-birds in the 
Shetlands, says of the puffin: “ One of the birds, 
standing so as directly to face the other, will 
often raise and then again lower, the head, 
some eight or nine times in succession, in a half 
solemn manner, at the same time opening its 
gaudy beak, sometimes to a considerable ex- 
tent, yet all the time without uttering a sound.”’ 
Not only is the outside of the beak gaudy in 
scarlet with white and blue lines, but the inside 
with its brilliant yellow lining is superlatively 
so, and is probably, as Selous suggests, de- 
veloped as a result of sexual selection. The 
inside of the mouth of the double crested cor- 
morant is a vivid blue — that of the European 
shag described by Selous is curiously enough a 
“ bright gamboge yellow ’’ — while on opening 
the mouth of a black guillemot I found it to be 
scarlet. All these birds open wide the beak in 
courtship, according to Selous. 
Among many of our smaller birds it fre- 
quently happens in the height of the spring 
season and in the ecstasy of their passion that 
they rise into the air with rapidly fluttering 
1The Bird Watcher in the Shetlands. London, 1905, 
p. 246. 
97 
