Page:BirdWatcherShetlands.djvu/132

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108
THE BIRD WATCHER

association to work over. But there are certain primitive interests, as we may call them, connected with food, and the family and sexual relations, which are very strong in animals, and in regard to which the memory, when put in action, may be equally strong. Who shall say that a man, returning to his home at the end of the day, sees in his mind's eye a clearer picture of what awaits him there than does the bird flying to its nest, or the bee to its hive? Now could anything, by association, call up this picture, suddenly, in the bird's or insect's mind, they would, no doubt, act for the moment as though it were real—as did Darwin's dog when he called him after five years' absence; and thus I can understand one of these guillemots flying with a fish to its ledge, to feed its chick, although its chick were no longer there. It might be so; I can see no reason against it. In the actions of these two birds there may lie—for me, now, there does lie—a great psychological interest. Suggestive they certainly are. I shall keep this in my mind and watch the ledges more closely.

The larger of the two young guillemots is now frequently flapping its wings, and latterly it has been jumping up, at the same time, though always it keeps in one place by its mother, and does not run about. Mother and chick often delectate themselves by nibbling the tip of each other's bills. And now there comes a surprise. For the first time that I have ever seen, the chick moves right away from where it was, leaving its father and mother. It travels along the