expect would be the case, seeing the ease with which the bird can at any moment squirt it out, when angry, and the distance to which it is shot. Nor is this the only power of the kind which these petrels possess, for they are able to eject their excrement to a quite astonishing distance—greater even, perhaps, than that to which the cormorant or shag attains in this art—at least it seems so at the time. This power is fully developed in the chick—by whom, indeed, it is the more needed—and I notice that the rock where each one lies is clean enough, though all round about it is whitened.
When the mother petrel leaves the chick, she, for the most part, continually circles round in the neighbourhood, and almost at every circle looks in at it, sometimes waking it up as it lies asleep, causing it to give an impatient little snap of the bill towards her. It is as though she could not sufficiently love, cherish, and look at it. It is her only child, and a spoilt one.
I must not forget to note down—now that it is full before me—that the inside of the chick's bill, with the mouth generally, is somewhat more lightly coloured than in the old bird; it is more pink—which may represent the natural colour—and less mauvy. This difference, as in the other cases, is what we might expect to see, were the colour a sexual adornment; but why, if it is not so, should there be any difference depending on age in such a region?
The great skua still reigns here in its accustomed
