Page:BirdWatchingSelous.djvu/233

on the bare rock, but sometimes they will pick up and play with a feather, and I have seen one carry some fibres of grass or root, which had perhaps fallen or been blown from a kittiwake's nest, to its partner, and lay them down as if showing her. In such acts we may perhaps see a lingering trace of a lost nest-building instinct. They walk, as a rule, with the whole shank, as well as the actual foot resting on the surface of the rock, but sometimes they will draw themselves up so that they stand upon the foot, or rather the toes, alone, just in the way in which a penguin does, and in this attitude they can both walk and run. Anatomically speaking, the shank is, I believe, a part of the foot, corresponding to our own heel, and functionally it is so, too, in the guillemot, as well as in the razorbill and puffin. It is interesting, therefore, to see the occasional assumption of an attitude which in the penguins has become habitual. Their ordinary walking attitude is with the head held erect, but they often sink it to or below the breast, at the same time craning the neck right forward, which gives them a grotesque and uncanny appearance, like one of the evil creatures in Retche's outlines of Faust. Again, one of them will sometimes throw the head and neck slightly forward, and at the same time jerking the wings sharply behind the back, will, after remaining with them thus "set" for a moment, run briskly forward, giving them a vigorous shaking. But in spite of wings and beaks, and a few other dissimilarities, it is of men that one has to think when watching these erect, white-waistcoated, funny little bodies. Indeed, they are much like us, for they fight, love, breed, eat, and stand upright, which is most of