PART II

DOMESTIC LIFE OF THE ADELIE PENGUIN

Laying and incubation of the eggs : The Adelies' habits in the water :

Their games : Care of the young : The later development of their social

system.

On November 3 several eggs were found, and on the 4th these were

beginning to be plentiful in places, though many of the colonies had not

yet started to lay.

Let me here call attention to the fact that up to now not a single bird

out of all those thousands had left the rookery once it had entered it.

Consequently not a single bird had taken food of any description during

all the most strenuous part of the breeding season, and as they did not

start to feed till November 8 thousands had to my knowledge fasted for

no fewer than twenty-seven days. Now of all the days of the year these

twenty-seven are certainly the most trying during the life of the

Adelie.

With the exception, in some cases, of a few hours immediately after

arrival (and I believe the later arrivals could not afford themselves

even this short respite) constant vigilance had been maintained; battle

after battle had been fought; some had been nearly killed in savage

encounters, recovered, fought again and again with varying fortune. They

had mated at last, built their nests, procreated their species, and, in

short, met the severest trials that Nature can inflict upon mind and

body, and at the end of it, though in many cases blood-stained and in

all caked and bedraggled with mire, they were as active and as brave as

ever.

When one egg had been laid the hen still sat on the nest. The egg had to

be continually warmed, and as the temperature was well below

freezing-point, exposure would mean the death of the embryo.

In order to determine the period between the laying of the two eggs, I

numbered seven nests with wooden pegs, writing on the pegs the date on

which each egg was laid. The result obtained is shown on page 53.

The average interval in the four cases where two eggs were laid being

3.5 days.

[Illustration: Fig. 33. Floods (Page 66)]

No. 7 nest was that of the hen which I mentioned as having waited for so

long for a mate, and the lateness of the date on which the first egg

appeared may have resulted in there being no other.

+------------+--------------+---------------+-------------+

| | Date of | Date of | |

| | appearance | appearance | Interval |

| | of first egg | of second egg | |

+------------+--------------+---------------+-------------+

| No. 1 nest | Nov. 14 | -- | Only 1 laid |

| | | | |

| No. 2 nest | Nov. 13 | Nov. 16 | 3 days |

| | | | |

| No. 3 nest | Nov. 14 | Nov. 17 | 3 days |

| | | | |

| No. 4 nest | | | |

| | | | |

| No. 5 nest | Nov. 12 | Nov. 16 | 4 days |

| | | | |

| No. 6 nest | Nov. 8 | Nov. 12 | 4 days |

| | | | |

| No. 7 nest | Nov. 24 | -- | Only 1 laid |

+------------+--------------+---------------+-------------+

The only notes I have on the incubation period are that the first chick

appeared in No. 5 nest on December 19 (incubation period thirty-seven

days) and in No. 7 nest on December 28 (incubation period thirty-four

days).

The skuas had increased considerably in numbers by November 4, and

frequently came to the scrap-heap outside our hut. Here were many frozen

carcasses of penguins which we had thrown there after the breasts had

been removed for food during the past winter. The skuas picked the bones

quite clean of flesh, so that the skeletons lay white under the skins,

and it was remarkable to what distances they sometimes carried the

carcasses, which weighed considerably more than the skuas themselves. I

found some of these bodies over five hundred yards away.

A perpetual feud was carried on between the penguins and the skuas. The

latter birds come to the south in the summer, and make their nests close

to, and in some cases actually among, those of the penguins, and during

the breeding time live almost entirely on the eggs, and later, on the

chicks. They never attack the adult penguins, who run at them and drive

them away when they light within reach, but as the skuas can take to the

wing and the penguins cannot, no pursuit is possible.

[Illustration: Fig. 34. Flooded]

[Illustration: Fig. 35. A Nest with Stones of Mixed Sizes]

The skuas fly about over the rookery, keeping only a few yards from the

ground, and should one of them see a nest vacated and the eggs exposed,

if only for a few seconds, it swoops at this, and with scarcely a pause

in its flight, picks up an egg in its beak and carries it to an open

space on the ground, there to devour the contents. Here then was another

need for constant vigilance, and so daring did the skuas become, that

often when a penguin sat on a nest carelessly, so as to leave one of the

eggs protruding from under it, a lightning dash from a skua would result

in the egg being borne triumphantly away.

The bitterness of the penguins' hatred of the skuas was well shown in

the neighbourhood of our scrap-heap. None of the food thrown out on to

this heap was of the least use to the penguins, but we noticed after a

time that almost always there were one or more penguins there, keeping

guard against the skuas, and doing their utmost to prevent them from

getting the food, and never allowing them to light on the heap for more

than a few seconds at a time. In fact, a constant feature of this heap

was the sentry penguin, darting hither and thither, aiming savage pecks

at the skuas, which would then rise a yard or two into the air out of

reach, the penguin squalling in its anger at being unable to follow its

enemy. At this juncture the penguin would imitate the flying motion with

its flappers, seeming instinctively to attempt to mount into the air, as

its remote ancestors doubtlessly did, before their wings had adapted

themselves solely to swimming.

Close to the scrap-heap there was a large knoll crowded with penguins'

nests, and it was this knoll that provided the sentries. Very rarely did

one of these leave the heap until another came to relieve it as long as

there were skuas about, but when the skuas went the penguins left it

too. When the skuas returned, however, and without the lapse of a few

seconds, a penguin would be seen to detach itself from the knoll and run

to guard the heap. That some primitive understanding on this matter

existed among the penguins seems to me probable, because whilst there

were generally one or two guarding the heap, there was never a crowd,

the rest of the knoll seeming quite satisfied as long as one of their

number remained on guard.

In describing the Cape Adare rookery I mentioned the fact that the

pebbles entering into the formation of the beach are basaltic, and

therefore of a dead black shade. The result of this is that as the sun's

altitude increases, heat is absorbed readily by the black rock, through

that clear atmosphere, and the snow upon it rapidly melts.

[Illustration: Fig. 36. "HOUR AFTER HOUR, DURING THE WHOLE DAY, THEY

FOUGHT AGAIN AND AGAIN" (Page 68)]

For a long time the penguins at their nests had satisfied their thirst

by eating the snow near them, but as this disappeared, they suffered

greatly, as was made evident by the way they lay with beaks open and

tongues exposed between them. (Fig. 30.) As time went on the cocks

started to make short journeys to the drifts which still remained in

order to quench their thirst, but the hens stuck manfully, or rather

"henfully" to their posts, though some of them seemed much distressed.

Later, those cocks which had nested in the centre of the rookery had

quite long journeys to make in order to find drifts, a very popular

resort being that which had formed in the lee of our hut, and all day

streams of them came here to gobble snow. Once a cock was seen to take a

lump of snow in his beak and carry it to his mate on the nest, who ate

it.

Mr. Priestley tells me that when he was at Cape Royds in 1908 he saw

cocks taking snow to hens on their nests. This procedure would seem to

be different to the parental instinct which governs the feeding of the

young, and it seemed to show that the cock realized that the hen must be

thirsty and in need of the snow, and kept this fact in mind when he was

away from her. Another point to note is that the occurrence was a very

rare and, in fact, exceptional one.

When conditions arose which were new to their experience the penguins

seemed utterly unable to grasp them.

As an example of this, we had rigged a guide rope from our hut to the

meteorological screen, about fifty yards away, to guide us during

blizzards. This rope, which was supported by poles driven into the

ground, sagged in one place till it nearly touched the ground. At

frequent intervals, penguins on their way past the hut were brought to a

standstill by running their breasts into this sagged rope, and each bird

as it was caught invariably went through the same ridiculous procedure.

First it would push hard against the rope, then finding this of no

avail, back a few steps, walk up to it again and have another push,

repeating the process several times. After this, instead of going a few

feet further along where it could easily walk under the rope, in ninety

per cent. of cases it would turn, and by a wide detour walk right round

the hut the other way, evidently convinced that some unknown obstacle

completely barred its passage on that side. This spectacle was a

continual source of amusement to us as it went on all day and every day

for some time.

[Illustration: Fig. 37. A Nest on a Rock (See page 71)]

[Illustration: Fig. 38. "One after another, the rest of the Party

followed him" (Page 75)]

As penguins' eggs are very good to eat and a great luxury, as well as

being beneficial to men living under Antarctic conditions, we collected

a large number, which we stowed away to freeze. To collect these eggs we

used to set off, carrying a bucket, and walk through the knolls. As we

picked our way, carefully placing our feet in the narrow spaces between

the nests, we were savagely pecked about the legs, as in most positions

at least, these birds could reach us without even leaving the nest,

whilst very often the mates standing near them would sail in at us,

raining in blows with their flippers with the rapidity of a maxim gun.

To search for eggs it was necessary to lift up the occupant of each nest

and look beneath her. If she were tackled from front or flank this was a

painful and difficult business, as she drove at the intruder's hands

with powerful strokes of her sharp beak, but we found that the best way

to set about the matter was to dangle a fur mit in front of her with one

hand, and when she seized this quickly slip the other behind her,

lifting her nether regions from the nest, and at the same time pushing

her gently forward. Immediately she would drop the fur mit, and sticking

her beak into the ground push herself backward with a determined effort

to stay on the nest. So long as the pressure from behind was kept up she

would keep her beak firmly fixed in the ground, and could be robbed at

will.

The egg abstracted, she was then left in peace, on which she would rise

to her feet, look under her for the egg and, finding that it was gone,

ruffle her feathers, and, trembling with indignation, look round for the

robber, seemingly quite unable to realize that we were the guilty ones.

This is typical of the Adelie's attitude towards us. We are beyond their

comprehension, and fear of us, anger at us, curiosity over us, although

frequently shown, are displayed only for a fleeting moment. In a few

minutes she might forget about the incident altogether and quietly

resume her position on the empty nest, but very often she would

violently attack any other bird who might happen to be standing near,

and thus as we filled our buckets we left a line of altercation in our

wake. This, however, was not long lived, and affairs soon settled down

to their normal state, and I believe that in about one minute the affair

was completely forgotten. The penguin, indeed, is in its nature the

embodiment of all that man should be when he explores the Antarctic

regions, ever acting on the principle that it is of no use to worry over

spilt milk.

[Illustration: Fig. 39. A JOY RIDE (Page 77)]

The comparative size of the penguin's egg is shown in some of my

photographs. Ninety-six eggs averaged 4.56 ounces apiece. They vary in

size from about 6.45 cm. to 7.2 cm. in length, and from 5.0 cm. to

5.5 cm. in breadth, on an average. Both ends are nearly equally rounded,

and of a white chalky texture without, and green within. This green

colour is plainly shown by transmitted light.

When the two have been laid the sitting bird places them one in front of

the other. The rearmost egg is tucked up on the outspread feet, the

foremost lies on the ground, and is covered by the belly of the bird as

it lies forward upon it. (Fig. 31.) By many of the birds a strong

inclination to burrow was displayed, and they seemed very fond of

delving in the soft shingle ledges that were to be found on some parts

of the beach. They did this ostensibly to get small stones for their

nests, but certainly burrowed deeper than they need have done, and

occasionally squatted for some time in little caves that they made in

this way. I noticed the same thing in the drifts when they went to eat

snow, and thought at times that they were going to make underground

nests, but they never did so, though some of the little shingle caves

would have made ideal nesting sites.

By November 7, though many nests were still without eggs, a large number

now contained two, and their owners started, turn and turn about, to go

to the open water leads about a third of a mile distant to feed, and as

a result of this a change began gradually to come over the face of the

rookery. Hitherto the whole ground in the neighbourhood of the nests had

been stained a bright green. This was due to the fasting birds

continually dropping their watery, bile-stained excreta upon it. (The

gall of penguins is bright green.) These excreta practically contained

no solid matter excepting epithelial cells and salts.

The nests themselves are never fouled, the excreta being squirted clear

of them for a distance of a foot or more, so that each nest has the

appearance of a flower with bright green petals radiating from its

centre. Some of the photographs show this well, especially Fig. 30. Even

when the chicks have come and are being sat upon by the parents, this

still holds good, because they lie with their heads under the old bird's

belly and their hindquarters just presenting themselves, so that they

may add their little decorative offerings, petal by petal! Now that the

birds were going to feed, the watery-green stains upon the ground gave

place to the characteristic bright brick-red guano, resulting from their

feeding on the shrimp-like euphausia in the sea; and the colour of the

whole rookery was changed in a few days, though this was first

noticeable, of course, in the region of those knolls which had been

occupied first, and which were now settled down to the peaceable and

regular family life which was to last until the chicks had grown.

[Illustration: Fig. 40. A KNOT OF PENGUINS ON THE ICE-FOOT (Page 77)]

As this family life became established, law and order reigned to some

extent, and there was a distinct tendency to preserve it, noticeably on

those knolls which had so settled down, and I think the following most

surprising incident bears evidence of what I have said. I quote word for

word from my notes on November 24, 1911:

"This afternoon I saw two cocks (probably) engaged in a very fierce

fight, which lasted a good three minutes. They were fighting with

flippers and bills, one of them being particularly clever with the

latter, frequently seizing and holding his opponent just behind the

right eye whilst he battered him with his flippers.

"After a couple of minutes, during which each had the other down on the

ground several times, three or four other penguins ran up and apparently

tried to stop the fight. This is the only construction I can put on

their behaviour, as time after time they kept running in when the two

combatants clinched, pushing their breasts in between them, but making

no attempt to fight themselves, whilst their more collected appearance

and smooth feathers were in marked contrast to the angry attitudes of

the combatants.

"The fight, which had started on the outskirts of a knoll crowded with

nests, soon edged away to the space outside, and it was here that I (and

Campbell, who was with me) saw the other penguins try to stop it. The

last minute was a very fierce and vindictive 'mill,' both fighting with

all their might, and ended in one of them trying to toboggan away from

his opponent; but he was too exhausted to get any pace on, so that just

as he got into the crowd again he was caught, and both fought for a few

seconds more, when the apparent victor suddenly stopped and ran away.

The other picked himself up and made his way rapidly among the nests,

evidently searching for one in particular.

"Following him, I saw him run up to a nest near the place where the

fight had begun. There was a solitary penguin waiting by this nest,

which was evidently new and not yet completed, and without eggs. The

cock I had followed, ruffled and battered with battle, ran up to the

waiting bird, and the usual side-to-side chatter in the ecstatic

attitude began and continued for half a minute, after which each became

calmer, and I left them apparently reconciled and arranging stones in

the nest.

"This incident was after the usual nature of a dispute between two mates

for a hen, but the pacific interference of the other birds was quite new

to my experience. That it was pacific I am quite convinced, and Campbell

agreed with me that there was no doubt of it. All the nests round about

had eggs under incubation, and the pair in question must have been

newcomers."

[Illustration: Fig. 41. AN ADELIE LEAPING FROM THE WATER (Page 82)]

On returning home I was glad to find that Mr. Bernacchi, who landed at

Cape Adare with the "Southern Cross" expedition, says in his account (p.

131) that he also saw penguins interfering and trying to stop others

from fighting.

Owing to our having several snowfalls without wind, and to the action of

the sun on the black rock, which I have mentioned already, the rookery

became a mass of slush in many places, and in some of the lower-lying

parts actually flooded. In some of these low-lying situations penguins

had unwarily made their nests, and there was one particular little

colony near our hut which was threatened with total extinction from the

accumulation of thaw water. As this trickled down from the higher ground

around them, the occupants of the flooded ground exerted all their

energies to avert this calamity, and from each nest one of its tenants

could be seen making journey after journey for pebbles, which it brought

to the one sitting on the nest, who placed stone after stone in

position, so that as the water rose the little castle grew higher and

higher and kept the eggs dry. One nest in particular I noticed which was

as yet a foot or so clear of the water and on dry ground; but whilst the

hen sat on this, the cock was working most energetically in anticipation

of what was going to happen, and for hours journeyed to and from the

nest, each time wading across the little lake to the other side, where

he was getting the stones.

This scene, which I photographed, is depicted on Fig. 33. In the

right-hand corner of the picture the cock is seen in the act of

delivering another stone to the hen who is waiting to receive it, whilst

some of the nests are actually surrounded by water. Fig. 34 shows

another nest, rising like a little island from a thaw pool, the eggs

being only just above water.

[Illustration: Fig. 42. ADELIE LEAPING FROM THE WATER

(THIS BIRD JUMPED 4 FEET HIGH AND 10 FEET LONG)

(Page 82)]

Some time ago I mentioned that there were penguins of weak individuality

who allowed others to rob them of their stones, and this was in some

cases very noticeable on the flooded ground, and there were one or two

nests here which had been almost entirely removed by thieving

neighbours.

To quote again from my notes.

"November 10. This evening I saw a hen penguin trying to sit on a nest

with two eggs. The nest had no stones, and was scooped deeply in the

ground in a slush of melting snow, so that the eggs were nearly covered

with water. The poor hen stood in the water and kept trying to squat

down on the eggs, but each time she did so, sat in the water and had to

get up again. She was shivering with cold and all bedraggled.

"I took the two eggs out of the nest, and Browning and I collected a

heap of stones (partly from her richer neighbours!) and built the nest

well up above the water. Then I replaced the eggs, and the hen at once

gladly sat on them, put them in position, and was busily engaged in

arranging the new stones round her when we left."

One day, when the season was well advanced, I saw a violent altercation

taking place between two penguins, one of which was in possession of a

nest in a somewhat isolated position. The other evidently was doing his

utmost to capture the nest, as whenever he got the other off, he stood

on it. There were scarcely any stones in the nest, which contained one

egg. I think from the way they fought that both were cocks.

For two reasons I make special mention of the occurrence, first, because

of all the fights I ever saw this was the longest and most relentless,

and, secondly, because the nest being in such an isolated position it

seemed curious that there could be any mistake about its ownership.

Such, however, seemed to be the case, and hour after hour, during the

whole day, they fought again and again.

After each bout of a few minutes both birds became so exhausted that

they sank panting to the ground, evidently suffering from thirst and at

the limit of their endurance. Sometimes one captured the nest, sometimes

the other, but after several hours of this, one of them began to show

signs of outlasting the other, and kept possession. For long after this,

however, the other returned repeatedly to the attack.

[Illustration: Fig. 43. JUMPING FROM THE WATER ON TO SLIPPERY ICE

(Page 82)]

I fetched my camera and photographed the birds as they fought (Fig. 36).

As time went on, the weaker bird took longer and longer intervals to

recover between his attacks, lying on his breast, with his head on the

snow and eyes half closed, so that I thought he was going to die. Each

time he got to his feet and staggered at his enemy, the latter rose from

the nest and met him, only to drive him back again. When I saw them at

about 10 P.M. (it was perpetual daylight now) both were lying down, the

victor on the nest, the vanquished about five yards off. The next day

one bird remained on the nest and the other had gone, and I do not know

what happened to him.

In the course of a walk through the rookery considerable diversity in

the choice of nesting sites was to be noticed. The general tendency is

for the penguins to build their nests close together (within a foot or

two of one another) on the tops of the rounded knolls, the lower levels

being left untenanted.

The most thickly populated districts were to be found on the screes

immediately below the cliffs. These screes having been formed in the

first instance by the falling of fragments due to weathering of the

cliff, their substance is still added to, little by little, as time goes

on, and therefore many are killed annually by falling rocks, as is

mentioned elsewhere, but weighing against this danger is the advantage

the cliff offers as a shelter from the E.S.E. gales. The same applies to

the nesting sites up the cliff, but I am convinced that only the love of

climbing can account for the extraordinary positions chosen by some of

the birds. Some of the nests are so difficult of access that their

occupants, on their way to them, may be seen sliding backwards down the

little glazed snow-slopes several times before they accomplish the

ascent, whilst in other places they have to jump from one foothold to

another along the almost perpendicular cliff.

Even up these heights a tendency to grouping is seen, though there are a

fair number of individuals who, seeming to seek seclusion, make their

nests at some distance from the others. I noticed this in some places

along the shore, too, where solitary nests were to be seen on isolated

patches of shingle.

When I visited Cape Royds in 1911 I found a couple nesting alone in a

cove known as "Black Sand Beach," some half mile from the rookery there.

Such isolation as this, however, is very unusual, and was quite a

departure from the regular custom of the species.

[Illustration: Fig. 44. "WHEN THEY SUCCEEDED IN PUSHING ONE OF THEIR

NUMBER OVER, ALL WOULD CRANE THEIR NECKS OVER THE EDGE" (Page 83)]

In some places at Cape Adare, large rocks some two or three feet in

height stood about the rookery. Whenever the summit of one of these was

accessible, a pair built their nest upon it,(4) though how they managed

to keep up there during the gales was a matter for wonder, but the proud

possessors of the castle evidently had a delight in their lofty

position. One nest had been made on an old packing-case left by the

expedition which wintered there in 1894, and several nested among the

weathering bones of the seals that had died on the beach.

(4) Fig. 37.

Although the greatest care had been taken by nearly all in the choice of

sites that would be on dry ground when the thaw came later in the

season, yet a few hens had gone to the other extreme, and with greatest

stupidity chosen their site right down in the hollows where they were

absolutely certain to be flooded later on. These stupid ones are thus

prevented from rearing their young, and so selection keeps the wiser for

future generations, and eliminates the less intelligent from the

community, though perhaps some of these learn by experience, and next

year use more discrimination in choosing their nesting place.

Some of the colonies--in fact, most of them--were orderly and well

arranged, and later in the season distinctly peaceful. Others, however,

presented a less respectable appearance. There was one in particular,

close to our hut, which could only be described as a slum of the meanest

description. All through the season there was more fighting in this

colony than anywhere else, and so remarkable was this, that we

christened the locality "Casey's Court" and the name stuck for the rest

of the year.

The nests had fewer stones than elsewhere, and were more untidily made,

and when the eggs came, owing to the constant fighting that went on,

most of them got spilt from the nests or broken, and very few chicks

were hatched in consequence, the mortality among them also being so

great that of the whole colony of some hundred nests, I do not think

more than forty or fifty chicks at most reached maturity. The

explanation of this state of things lay, I believe, in the fact that our

hut and its curtilage deflected the stream of penguins on their way past

the spot from the water to the back of the rookery, so that a constant

stream of them passed through "Casey's Court," upsetting the tempers of

the inhabitants so that they became disorderly. In addition to this,

there was a fairly big thaw pool and much miry ground near by, so that

the inhabitants were generally covered with mud and very disreputable to

look at.

[Illustration: Fig. 45. DIVING FLAT INTO SHALLOW WATER (Page 83)]

During the fasting season, as none of the penguins had entered the

water, they all became very dirty and disreputable in appearance, as

well may be imagined considering the life they led, but now that they

went regularly to swim, they immediately got back their sleek and

spotless state.

From the ice-foot to the open water, the half mile or so of sea-ice

presented a lively scene as the thousands of birds passed to and fro

over it, outward bound parties of dirty birds from the rookery passing

the spruce bathers, homeward bound after their banquet and frolic in the

sea. So interesting and instructive was it to watch the bathing parties,

that we spent whole days in this way.

As I have said before, the couples took turn and turn about on the nest,

one remaining to guard and incubate while the other went off to the

water.

On leaving their nests, the birds made their way down the ice-foot on to

the sea-ice. Here they would generally wait about and join up with

others until enough had gathered together to make up a decent little

party, which would then set off gaily for the water. They were now in

the greatest possible spirits, chattering loudly and frolicking with one

another, and playfully chasing each other about, occasionally indulging

in a little friendly sparring with their flippers.

Arrived at length at the water's edge, almost always the same procedure

was gone through. The object of every bird in the party seemed to be to

get one of the others to enter the water first. They would crowd up to

the very edge of the ice, dodging about and trying to push one another

in. Sometimes those behind nearly would succeed in pushing the front

rank in, who then would just recover themselves in time, and rushing

round to the rear, endeavour to turn the tables on the others.

Occasionally one actually would get pushed in, only to turn quickly

under water and bound out again on to the ice like a cork shot out of a

bottle. Then for some time they would chase one another about, seemingly

bent on having a good game, each bird intent on finding any excuse from

being the first in. Sometimes this would last a few minutes, sometimes

for the better part of an hour, until suddenly the whole band would

change its tactics, and one of the number start to run at full tilt

along the edge of the ice, the rest following closely on his heels,

until at last he would take a clean header into the water. One after

another the rest of the party followed him (Fig. 38), all taking off

exactly from the spot where he had entered, and following one another so

quickly as to have the appearance of a lot of shot poured out of a

bottle into the water. The accompanying photograph presents this last

scene.

[Illustration: Fig. 46. DIVING FLAT INTO SHALLOW WATER (Page 83)]

A dead silence would ensue till a few seconds later, when they would all

come to the surface some twenty or thirty yards out, and start rolling

about and splashing in the water, cleaning themselves and making sounds

exactly like a lot of boys calling out and chaffing one another.

So extraordinary was this whole scene, that on first witnessing it we

were overcome with astonishment, and it seemed to us almost impossible

that the little creatures, whose antics we were watching, were actually

birds and not human beings. Seemingly reluctant as they had been to

enter the water, when once there they evinced every sign of enjoyment,

and would stay in for hours at a time.

As may be imagined, the penguins spent a great deal of time on their way

to and from the water, especially during the earlier period before the

sea-ice had broken away from the ice-foot, as they had so far to walk

before arriving at the open leads.

As a band of spotless bathers returning to the rookery, their white

breasts and black backs glistening with a fine metallic lustre in the

sunlight, met a dirty and bedraggled party on its way out from the

nesting ground, frequently both would stop, and the clean and dirty

mingle together and chatter with one another for some minutes. If they

were not speaking words in some language of their own, their whole

appearance belied them, and as they stood, some in pairs, some in groups

of three or more, chattering amicably together, it became evident that

they were sociable animals, glad to meet one another, and, like many

men, pleased with the excuse to forget for a while their duties at home,

where their mates were waiting to be relieved for their own spell off

the nests.

After a variable period of this intercourse, the two parties would

separate and continue on their respective ways, a clean stream issuing

from the crowd in the direction of the rookery, a dirty one heading off

towards the open water, but here it was seen that a few who had bathed

and fed, and were already perhaps half-way home, had been persuaded to

turn and accompany the others, and so back they would go again over the

way they had come, to spend a few more hours in skylarking and splashing

about in the sea.

[Illustration: Fig. 47. DIVING FLAT INTO SHALLOW WATER (Page 83)]

In speaking of these games of the penguins, I wish to lay emphasis on

the fact that these hours of relaxation play a large part in their lives

during the advanced part of the breeding period. They would spend hours

in playing at a sort of "touch last" on the sea-ice near the water's

edge. They never played on the ground of the rookery itself, but only on

the sea-ice and the ice-foot and in the water, and I may here mention

another favourite pastime of theirs. I have said that the tide flowed

past the rookery at the rate of some five or six knots. Small ice-floes

are continually drifting past in the water, and as one of these arrived

at the top of the ice-foot, it would be boarded by a crowd of penguins,

sometimes until it could hold no more. (Fig. 39.) This "excursion boat,"

as we used to call it, would float its many occupants down the whole

length of the ice-foot, and if it passed close to the edge, those that

rode on the floes would shout at the knots of penguins gathered along

the ice-foot (Fig. 40) who would shout at them in reply, so that a gay

bantering seemed to accompany their passage past the rookery.

Arrived at the farther end, some half a mile lower down, those on the

"excursion boat" had perforce to leave it, all plunging into the tide

and swimming against this until they came to the top again, then boarded

a fresh floe for another ride down. All day these floes, often crowded

to their utmost capacity, would float past the rookery. Often a knot of

hesitating penguins on the ice-foot, on being hailed by a babel of

voices from a floe, would suddenly make the plunge, and all swim off to

join their friends for the rest of the journey, and I have seen a floe

so crowded that as a fresh party boarded it on one side, many were

pushed off the other side into the water by the crush.

Once, as we stood watching the penguins bathing, one of them popped out

of the water on to the ice with a large pebble in its mouth, which it

had evidently fetched from the bottom. This surprised me, as the depth

of the sea here was some ten fathoms at least. The bird simply dropped

the stone on the ice and then dived in again, so that evidently he had

gone to all the trouble of diving for the stone simply for the pleasure

of doing it. Mr. J. H. Gurney, in his book on the gannet, says they

(gannets) are said to have got themselves entangled in fishing-nets at a

depth of 180 ft. and that their descent to a depth of 90 ft. is quite

authentic, so that perhaps the depth of this penguin's dive was not an

unusual one.

[Illustration: Fig. 48. Diving Flat]

[Illustration: Fig. 49. Adelies "Porpoising" (Page 80)]

The tide at the open water leads where they bathed ran a good six knots,

but the Adelies swam quite easily against this without leaving the

surface.

In the water, as on the land, they have two means of progression. The

first is by swimming as a duck swims, excepting that they lie much lower

in the water than a duck does, the top of the back being submerged, so

that the neck sticks up out of the water. As their feet are very

slightly webbed, they have not the advantages that a duck or gull has

when swimming in this way, but supplement their foot-work by short quick

strokes of their flippers. This they are easily able to do, owing to the

depth to which the breast sinks in the water.

The second method is by "porpoising."

This consists in swimming under water, using the wings or "flippers" for

propulsion, the action of these limbs being practically the same as they

would be in flying. As their wings are beautifully shaped for swimming,

and their pectoral muscles extraordinarily powerful, they attain great

speed, besides which they are as nimble as fish, being able completely

to double in their tracks in the flash of a moment. In porpoising, after

travelling thirty feet or so under water, they rise from it, shooting

clean out with an impetus that carries them a couple of yards in the

air, then with an arch of the back they are head first into the water

again, swimming a few more strokes, then out again, and so on.

I show a photograph of them doing this (Fig. 49).

Perhaps the most surprising feat of which the Adelie is capable is seen

when it leaps from the water on to the ice. We saw this best later in

the year when the sea-ice had broken away from the ice-foot, so that

open water washed against the ice cliff bounding the land. This little

cliff rose sheer from the water at first, but later, by the action of

the waves, was under-cut for some six feet or more in places, so that

the ledge of ice at the top hung forwards over the water. The height of

most of this upper ledge varied from three to six feet.

[Illustration: Fig. 50. A PERFECT DIVE INTO DEEP WATER (Page 83)]

Whilst in the water the penguins usually hunted and played in parties,

just as they had entered it, though a fair number of solitary

individuals were also to be seen. When a party had satisfied their

appetites and their desire for play, they would swim to a distance of

some thirty to forty yards from the ice-foot, when they might be seen

all to stretch their necks up and take a good look at the proposed

landing-place. Having done this, every bird would suddenly disappear

beneath the surface, not a ripple showing which direction they had

taken, till suddenly, sometimes in a bunch, sometimes in a stream, one

after the other they would all shoot out of the water, clean up on to

the top of the ice-foot. (Figs. 41 and 42.) Several times I measured the

distance from the surface of the water to the ledge on which they

landed, and the highest leap I recorded was exactly five feet. The "take

off" was about four feet out from the edge, the whole of the necessary

impetus being gained as the bird approached beneath the water.

The most important thing to note about this jumping from the water was

the accuracy with which they invariably rose at precisely the right

moment, the exact distance being judged during their momentary survey of

a spot from a distance, before they dived beneath the water, and carried

in their minds as they approached the ice. I am sure that this

impression was all they had to guide them, as with a ripple on the

water, and at the pace they were going, they could not possibly have

seen their landing-place at all clearly as they approached it, besides

which, in many cases, the ledge of ice on which they landed projected

many feet forwards from the surface, yet I never saw them misjudge their

distance so as to come up under the overhanging ledge.

During their approach they swam at an even distance of about three or

four feet beneath the surface, projecting themselves upwards by a sudden

upward bend of the body, at the same time using their tail as a helm, in

the manner well shown in one of my photographs, in which one of the

birds is seen in the air at the moment it left the water, the tail being

bent sharply up towards the back.

Their quickness of perception is shown very well as they land on the

ice. If the surface is composed of snow, and so affords them a good

foothold, they throw their legs well forward and land on their feet, as

shown in Figs. 41 and 42, but should they find themselves landing on a

slippery ice-surface, they throw themselves forward, landing on their

breasts in the tobogganing position as shown in Fig. 43.

The Adelies dive very beautifully. We did not see this at first, before

the sea-ice had gone out, because to enter the water they had only to

drop a few inches, but later, when entering from the ice terraces, we

constantly saw them making the most graceful dives.

[Illustration: Fig. 51. SEA-LEOPARDS "LURK BENEATH THE OVERHANGING

LEDGES OF THE ICE-FOOT, OUT OF SIGHT OF THE BIRDS OVERHEAD" (Page 84)]

At the place where they most often went in, a long terrace of ice about

six feet in height ran for some hundreds of yards along the edge of the

water, and here, just as on the sea-ice, crowds would stand near the

brink. When they had succeeded in pushing one of their number over, all

would crane their necks over the edge (Fig. 44), and when they saw the

pioneer safe in the water, the rest followed.

When diving into shallow water they fall flat (Figs. 45, 46, and 47),

but into deep water, and from any considerable height, they assume the

most perfect positions (Fig. 50) and make very little splash.

Occasionally we saw them stand hesitating to dive at a height of some

twenty feet, but generally they descended to some lower spot, and did

not often dive from such a height, but twelve feet was no uncommon dive

for them.

The reluctance shown by each individual of a party of intending bathers

to be the first to enter the water may partly have been explained when,

later on, we discovered that a large number of sea-leopards were

gathered in the sea in the neighbourhood of the rookery to prey on the

penguins. These formidable animals, of which I show some photographs,

used to lurk beneath the overhanging ledges of the ice-foot, out of

sight of the birds on the ice overhead. (Fig. 51.) They lay quite still

in the water, only their heads protruding, until a party of Adelies

would descend into the water almost on top of them, when with a sudden

dash and snap of their great formidable jaws, they would secure one of

the birds.

It seemed to me then, that all the chivvying and preliminaries which

they went through before entering the water, arose mainly from a desire

on the part of each penguin to get one of its neighbours to go in first

in order to prove whether the coast was clear or not, though all this

manoeuvring was certainly taken very lightly, and quite in the nature of

a game. This indeed was not surprising, for of all the animals of which

I have had any experience, I think the Adelie penguin is the very

bravest. The more we saw of them the fonder we became of them and the

more we admired their indomitable courage. The appearance of a

sea-leopard in their midst was the one thing that caused them any panic.

With dozens of these enemies about they would gambol in the sea in the

most light-hearted manner, but the appearance of one among them was the

signal for a stampede, but even this was invariably gone through in an

orderly manner with some show of reason, for, porpoising off in a clump,

they at once spread themselves out, scattering in a fan-shaped formation

as they sped away, instead of all following the same direction.

[Illustration: Fig. 52. A SEA-LEOPARD'S HEAD (Page 87)]

As far as I could judge, however, the sea-leopards are a trifle faster

in the water than the Adelies, as one of them occasionally would catch

up with one of the fugitives, who then, realizing that speed alone would

not avail him, started dodging from side to side, and sometimes swam

rapidly round and round in a circle of about twelve feet diameter for a

full minute or more, doubtless knowing that he was quicker in turning

than his great heavy pursuer, but exhaustion would overtake him in the

end, and we could see the head and jaws of the great sea-leopard rise to

the surface as he grabbed his victim. The sight of a panic-stricken

little Adelie tearing round and round in this manner was a sadly common

sight late in the season.

Sea-leopards are no mean customers and should be treated with caution.

Commander Campbell and I used to hunt them from a little Norwegian pram

(a species of dinghy) which we rowed quietly up and down close under the

ice-foot, shooting at the sea-leopards with a rifle when we saw their

heads above water.

One day we had an interesting little adventure. We had shot and killed

one, a fine bull about ten feet long, which had sunk to the bottom in

some five fathoms. Having just pulled away from him, we were about ten

yards from the ice-foot, when another very large sea-leopard overtook

us, swimming from the direction of the dead bull. It passed under the

pram, bumping against the keel in doing so. When about ten yards ahead

of us it turned and made straight back for us, but as we were bows-on to

it, it came right alongside the boat, churning up the water and wetting

us. At this moment it turned on its side, its right fore-flipper beating

the surface and its belly towards us, and was just starting to rear its

head up when we both lunged at it with our paddles, and so pushed the

little boat away from it. This brought us alongside the ice-foot, from

which Campbell got a shot at it half a minute later, and wounded it in

the neck. The moment after we lunged at it with our paddles it dived,

then reappeared ten or fifteen yards off, rearing its head out of the

water, and it was at this moment that Campbell shot it. After this it

reappeared several times at the surface, but drifted away with the tide

and we lost it.

[Illustration: Fig. 53. A Sea-Leopard 10 ft. 61/2 ins. long]

[Illustration: Fig. 54. A Young Sea-Leopard on Sea-Ice (Page 87)]

The sea-leopard has not a reputation for attacking men in boats, and

this one may have been actuated by curiosity merely, but in favour of

its meaning to attack us were, first, that it came to us straight from

the direction of the dead bull we had shot, and secondly, that it seems

hardly likely that after bumping against our keel, mere curiosity could

have tempted it to come back and try to look over the gunwale! As a rule

we had to drift very quietly along when hunting sea-leopards, as the

slightest sound frightened them away.

All that we could do to protect our friends was to shoot as many of

these sea-leopards as possible but though we may have made some

difference, there were always many about.

Some idea of the depredations committed by these animals may be gathered

from the fact that in the stomach of one which we shot I found the

bodies of eighteen penguins, in various stages of digestion, the beast's

intestines being literally stuffed with the feathers remaining from the

disintegration of many more. Photographs of these animals are seen in

Figs. 52, 53, and 54.

Though the actual presence of a sea-leopard put the Adelies to

confusion, causing them to "porpoise" madly away for a few hundred

yards, yet once away from the immediate neighbourhood of the arch enemy,

they appeared to think no more of him, and behaved as though there were

no further need for anxiety, though probably they kept a sharp look-out

nevertheless. Evidence goes to show that the sea-leopard is the only

living enemy, excepting man, that threatens the life of the adult Adelie

penguin.

One day, as I watched some hundreds of Adelies bathing in an open lead,

suddenly the back of an enormous killer-whale (_Orca gladiator_) rose

above the surface as it crossed the lead from side to side, appearing

from beneath the ice on one side and disappearing beneath it on the

other. To my surprise, not the slightest fear was shown by the birds in

the water. Had this beast been a sea-leopard, there would have been a

stampede, and every bird have leapt from the water on to the sea-ice. On

this evidence I formed the opinion that in all probability killer-whales

do no harm to Adelie penguins; later I saw it confirmed, when a school

of killers shaved close past several floes that were crowded with

Adelies, and made not the least attempt to get at them, as they might so

easily have done by upsetting the floes. Very probably this is because

the agile bird can escape with such ease from the ponderous whale, and

fears it no more than a terrier fears a cow, though he thinks twice

before coming within reach of its jaws.

[Illustration: Fig. 55. "WITH GRACEFUL ARCHING OF HIS NECK, APPEARED

TO ASSURE HER OF HIS READINESS TO TAKE CHARGE" (Page 90)]

When the sea-ice had gone out, leaving open water right up to the

ice-foot, a ledge of ice was left along the western side of the rookery,

forming a sort of terrace or "front," with its sides composed of blue

ice, rising sheer out of the water to a height of some six feet or more

in places. From this point of vantage it was possible to stand and watch

the penguins as they swam in the clear water below, and some idea was

formed of their wonderful agility when swimming beneath the surface. As

they propelled themselves along with powerful strokes of their wings,

they swerved from side to side to secure the little prawn-like euphausia

which literally swarm everywhere in the Antarctic seas, affording them

ample food at all times. Their gluttonous habits here became very

evident. They would gobble euphausia until they could hold no more, only

to vomit the whole meal into the water as they swam, and so enlightened

start to feast again. As they winged their way along, several feet

beneath the surface, a milky cloud would suddenly issue from their

mouths and drift slowly away down stream, as, without the slightest

pause in their career, they dashed eagerly along in the hunt for more.

When a penguin returned to his mate on the nest, after his jaunt in the

sea, much formality had to be gone through before he was allowed to take

charge of the eggs. This ceremony of "relieving guard" almost invariably

was observed.

Going up to his mate, with much graceful arching of his neck, he

appeared to assure her in guttural tones of his readiness to take charge

(Fig. 55). At this she would become very agitated, replying with raucous

staccato notes, and refusing to budge from her position on the eggs.

Then both would become angry for a while, arguing in a very heated

manner, until at last she would rise, and, standing by the side of the

nest, allow him to walk on to it, which he immediately did, and after

carefully placing the eggs in position, sink down upon them, afterwards

thrusting his bill beneath his breast to push them gently into a

comfortable position. After staying by him for a little while, the other

at length would go off to bathe and feed.

[Illustration: Fig. 56. "The Chicks began to appear"

(A Typical Group of Nests)]

[Illustration: Fig. 57. An Adelie being Sick (Page 94)]

The length of time during which each bird was away varied considerably,

but a "watch bill" was kept of one particular pair with the following

result:(5)

(5) This "watch-bill" was kindly kept for me by Mr. Priestly on his

meteorological rounds, the nests being near the thermometer screen.

Nov. 14. Egg laid. Hen sitting.

Nov. 27. A cock seen to join the hen for the first time since the 14th.

He took her place on the nest. This was the first day on which any red

guano was seen about the nest.

Dec. 10. The hen returned between 8 P.M. and 10 P.M., having been absent

since November 27. Fresh red guano: the first for many days.

Dec. 14. The cock relieved the hen between 8 A.M. and 10 A.M.

Dec. 15. The hen relieved the cock between 8 A.M. and 10 A.M. Between 6

P.M. and 8 P.M. the chick was hatched, the hen remaining on the nest.

Dec. 17. At 8 A.M. the cock was found to have relieved the hen.

Dec. 18. Hen mounted guard between 6 P.M. and 8 P.M.

Dec. 20. Cock relieved guard about 8 A.M. At 8 P.M. both cock and hen

were at the nest, the hen standing by it, the cock on it.

Dec. 21. The hen relieved guard at 8 P.M.

Dec. 23. Cock came back at noon and relieved guard.

Dec. 24. The cock remained on guard all day. The hen was gone from 1

P.M. till 6 P.M., when she returned and relieved guard.

Dec. 25. 8 A.M. Both at nest, hen still on. 10 A.M. changed guard. Hen

gone.

Dec. 26. Hen on nest. Cock standing near.

Dec. 27. 8 A.M. Cock on nest.

Dec. 28. 8 A.M. Hen on nest.

Dec. 29. Cock relieved guard.

Dec. 30. Hen arrived 3 P.M. and relieved guard.

Dec. 31. 10 P.M. to midnight, changed, cock on. Both there at 10 P.M.

Jan. 1. 10 A.M. Both at nest. 12 noon. Both at nest. The youngster

complicating matters by running away every time he was passed by the

observer, thus getting himself and his parents embroiled with the

neighbours.

Jan. 1. 2 P.M. Hen on nest. Cock gone.

Jan. 2. 10 A.M. Hen on nest. 12 noon. Chick disappeared. 2 P.M. Nest

deserted. 4 P.M. Cock on nest. No chick. 8 P.M. Cock on nest. No chick.

Jan. 3. Cock on the nest with the chick.

[Illustration: Fig. 58. METHOD OF FEEDING THE YOUNG (Page 94)]

From the above Table it will be seen that the hen was not relieved by

the cock until a fortnight after she had laid her egg (in this case

there was only one) so that probably she had been without food for a

month. Then she left, and only returned to relieve the cock after the

lapse of another fortnight, it being worth remarking that each was

absent for the same length of time. When the chick was hatched, a

different regime began, as of course the chick had to be fed and

journeys to the sea made at regular intervals for the purpose of getting

food.

When the chicks began to appear all over the rookery (Fig. 56), a marked

change was noticed in the appearance of the parents as they made their

way on foot from the water's edge to the nests. Hitherto they had been

merely remarkable for their spotless and glistening plumage, but now

they were bringing with them food for the young, and so distended were

their stomachs with this, that they had to lean backward as they walked,

to counterbalance their bulging bellies, and in consequence frequently

tripped over the inequalities of the ground which were thus hidden from

their gaze.

What with the exertion of tramping with their burden across the rookery,

and perhaps on rare occasions one or two little disputes with other

penguins by the way, frequently they were in some distress before they

reached their destination, and quite commonly they would be sick and

bring up the whole offering before they got there. Consequently, little

red heaps of mashed up and half digested euphausia were to be seen about

the rookery. Once I saw a penguin, after he had actually reached the

nest, quite unable to wait for the chick to help itself in the usual

manner, deposit the lot upon the ground in front of his mate. I saw what

was coming and secured the accompanying photograph of the incident.

(Fig. 57.) When this happens the food is wasted, as neither chick nor

adult will touch it however hungry they may be, the former only feeding

by the natural method of pushing his head down the throat of a parent,

and so helping himself direct from the gullet. (Fig. 58.)

[Illustration: Fig. 59. PROFILE OF AN ADELIE CHICK (Page 95)]

When the chicks are small they are kept completely covered by the parent

who sits on the nest. They grow, however, at an enormous rate, gobbling

vast quantities of food as it is brought to them, their elastic bellies

seeming to have no limit to their capacity (Fig. 59); indeed, when

standing, they rest on a sort of tripod, formed by the protuberant belly

in front and the two feet behind.

I weighed a chick at intervals for some time, and this was the

astonishing result:

Ounces

The egg 4.56

The chick when hatched 3.00

Five days old 13.00

Six " 15.75

Eight " 24.75

Nine " 28.50

Eleven " 37.75

Twelve " 42.50

To see an Adelie chick of a fortnight's growth trying to get itself

covered by its mother is a most ludicrous sight. The most it can hope

for is to get its head under cover, the rest of its body being exposed

to the air; but the downy coat of the chick is close and warm, and

suffices in all weathers to protect it from the cold. Fig. 60

illustrates what I have said very well, whilst Fig. 61 shows a mother

with a chick twelve days old.

Whilst the chicks are small the two parents manage to keep them fed

without much difficulty;(6) but as one of them has always to remain at

the nest to keep the chicks warm, guard them from skuas and hooligan

cocks, and prevent them from straying, only one is free to go for food.

Later on, however, two other factors introduce themselves. The first of

these is that the chick's downy coats become thick enough to protect

them from cold without the warmth of the parent; and the second that as

the chicks grow they require an ever-increasing quantity of food, and at

the age of about a fortnight this demand becomes too great for one bird

to cope with. At this time it is still necessary to prevent the chicks

from straying and to protect them from the skuas and "hooligans," and so

to meet these two demands a most interesting social system is developed.

The individual care of the chicks by their parents is abandoned, and in

place of this, colonies start to "pool" their offspring, which are

herded together into clumps or "creches," each of which is guarded by a

few old birds, the rest being free to go and forage.

(6) Fig. 62.

[Illustration: Fig. 60. A TASK BECOMING IMPOSSIBLE (Page 95)]

It is quite likely that if a chick which has escaped from its own creche

joins another creche it will get fed there, as it seems hardly possible

for the adults to recognize the individuals of so large a gathering and

to detect a stranger should one turn up, but there is good reason to

believe that the old birds work for their own creches only, and remain

faithful to them for the rest of the season, because, as they make their

way across the rookery, laden with the food they are bringing from the

sea, it is sadly common to see them pursued by strayed and starving

youngsters, plaintively piping their prayers for a meal; and these

appeals are always made in vain, the old birds turning a deaf ear to the

youngsters, who at last, weary and weak, give up the pursuit, and in the

end fall a prey to the ever-watchful skuas. Further evidence is found in

the fact that the chicks at the very back of the rookery and up at the

top of the Cape are just as well nourished as those nearer the water,

who are constantly passed by a stream of food-laden parents.

Twice already I have mentioned that strayed chicks fall a prey to

"hooligan" cocks. These hang about the rookery often in little bands. At

the beginning of the season there are very few of them, but later they

increase greatly, do much damage, and cause a great deal of annoyance to

the peaceful inhabitants. The few to be found at first probably are

cocks who have not succeeded in finding mates, and consequently are "at

a loose end." Later on, as their numbers are so greatly increased, they

must be widowers, whose mates have lost their lives in one way or

another.

Many of the colonies, especially those nearer the water, are plagued by

little knots of "hooligans," who hang about their outskirts, and should

a chick go astray it stands a good chance of losing its life at their

hands. The crimes which they commit are such as to find no place in this

book, but it is interesting indeed to note that, when nature intends

them to find employment, these birds, like men degenerate in idleness.

Some way back I made some allusion to the way in which many of the

penguins were choosing sites up the precipitous sides of the Cape at the

back of the rookery. Later I came to the conclusion that this was purely

the result of their love of climbing. There was one colony at the very

summit of the Cape,(7) whose inhabitants could only reach their nests by

a long and trying climb to the top and then a walk of some hundred yards

across a steep snow slope hanging over the very brink of a sheer drop of

seven hundred feet on to the sea-ice.

(7) Fig. 70.

[Illustration: Fig. 61. ADELIE WITH CHICK TWELVE DAYS OLD (Page 96)]

During the whole of the time when they were rearing their young, these

mountaineers had to make several journeys during each twenty-four hours

to carry their enormous bellyfuls of euphausia all the way from the sea

to their young on the nests--a weary climb for their little legs and

bulky bodies. The greater number who had undertaken this did so at a

time when there were ample spaces unoccupied in the most eligible parts

of the rookery.

I have mentioned that large masses of ice were stranded by the sea along

the shores of the rookery. These fragments of bergs, some of them

fifteen to twenty feet in height, formed a miniature mountain range

along the shore. All day parties of penguins were to be seen assiduously

climbing the steep sides of this little range. Time after time, when

half way up, they would descend to try another route, and often when

with much pains one had scaled a slippery incline, he would come sliding

to the bottom, only to pick himself up and have another try. (Fig. 63.)

Generally, this climbing was done by small parties who had clubbed

together, as they generally do, from social inclination. It was not

unusual for a little band of climbers to take as much as an hour or more

over climbing to the summit. Arrived at the top they would spend a

variable period there, sometimes descending at once, sometimes spending

a considerable time there, gazing contentedly about them, or peering

over the edge to chatter with other parties below.

Again, about half a mile from the beach, a large berg some one hundred

feet in height was grounded in fairly deep water, accessible at first

over the sea-ice, but later, when this had gone, surrounded by open

water. Its sides were sheer except on one side, which sloped steeply

from the water's edge to the top.

From the time when they first went to the sea to feed until the end of

the season, there was a continual stream of penguins ascending and

descending the berg. As I watched them through glasses I saw that they

had worn deep paths in the snow from base to summit. They had absolutely

nothing to gain by going to all this trouble but the pleasure they

seemed to derive from the climb, and when at the top, merely had a good

look round and came down again.

[Illustration: Fig. 62. A COUPLE WITH THEIR CHICKS (Page 96)]

When the birds were arriving at the rookery I watched for those who were

to nest up the cliff, and several times saw birds on arriving at the

rookery make for the heights without any hesitation, threading their way

almost in a straight line through the nests to the screes at the bottom

of the cliff, and up these to one or other of the paths leading up its

side. Probably these had been hatched there, or had nested there before,

and were making their way to their old haunts, but my notes on their

nesting habits go to show that the cocks, at any rate, cannot keep to

the same spot during successive years. It is the hen who chooses the

site, and stays on it, as I have shown, until a mate comes to her, and

wins her, very often only after defeating many other competitors.

The waste of life in an Adelie rookery is very great, and is due to the

following causes:

The eggs.

Skuas.

Cocks fighting among the nests.

Floods from thaw water.

Death of parents.

Snow-drifts.

Landslides.

The young chicks.

Skuas.

Landslides.

"Hooligan" cocks.

Getting lost.

Death of parents.

Adults.

Sea-leopards.

Landslides.

Snow-drifts.

In the above lists I have made no mention of the wanton depredations

committed--owing to the licence given to ignorant seamen--by expeditions

which visit the Antarctic from time to time, but as these visits are

made at rare intervals, they cannot greatly affect the population.

[Illustration: Fig. 63. ADELIE PENGUINS HAVE A STRONG LOVE OF CLIMBING

FOR ITS OWN SAKE (Page 99)]

Some of the items in my list require explanation. The screes at the foot

of the cliff at Cape Adare are perhaps the most thickly populated part

of the rookery. As the thaw proceeds, boulders of different sizes are

continually falling down the cliff, some of them for many hundreds of

feet before they finally plunge in among the nests on the screes, doing

terrible damage, and often rolling some distance out into the rookery.

At other times, owing to the bursting out of thaw water which has been

dammed up at the top of the cliff, large landslides are caused which

bury many hundreds of nests beneath them. In fact, these screes on which

the nests are built have been formed by these landslides taking place

from year to year, and no doubt form the graves of thousands upon

thousands of former generations. One of these slides took place whilst

we were at the rookery, doing terrible damage. A crowded colony of

Adelies were nesting just below, and the avalanche passed right through

and over them, causing the most sad havoc. We found hundreds of injured

and dying, some of them in a pitiable condition. Several were completely

disembowelled, others had the whole skin of their backs torn down and

hanging behind them in a flap, exposing the bare flesh. Dozens had

broken or dislocated legs and flippers.

The worst feature was that many were buried alive beneath the snow, or

pinned down to the ground by masses of basalt. Twice I saw one flipper

sticking out of the snow, moving dismally, and dug out in each case a

badly injured bird which would have lingered perhaps for days, because

loose snow does not always suffocate, owing to the amount of air

contained in its interstices, and to the fact that diffusion takes place

through it very readily. Several of us spent a long time in killing with

ice-axes those that seemed too badly injured to recover.

It was remarkable to see the way in which all the nests which had

escaped the avalanche, however narrowly, were still sat upon by their

occupants, as if nothing had happened. Also I saw several badly injured

birds sitting on their eggs, some of them soaked in blood, so that they

looked like crimson parrots. The amount of bloodshed must have been

great, as the snow was dyed with blood in all directions. As a cascade

of water followed the avalanche, and continued for some hours, spreading

out into little rivers among the nests, many were being deluged, and

some of the penguins actually were sitting in the running water, in a

vain attempt to keep warm their drowned chicks and spoiled eggs.

Sometimes, digging at hazard in the drifted snow, I came on birds that

had been deeply buried, and though they were held down and kept

motionless by the weight of the snow covering them, most of them were

alive, and I have no doubt many dozens died a lingering death in this

way. Such as had merely suffered broken flippers or legs, I spared, and

the next day nearly all of these seemed to be doing well. One bird I

found sitting on two eggs which were in the middle of a rivulet of

water, so I lifted them out and put them on dry ground close by, but the

parent would have nothing to do with them after this.

[Illustration: Fig. 64. ADELIES ON THE ICE-FOOT]

A feature of the above scene, which one could not help noticing, was

that however badly a penguin was injured it was never molested by the

others, as is almost invariably the rule among other birds, including

their near neighbours the skuas. I have seen a sick skua hunted

continuously for over an hour by a mob of its own kind who would not

allow it to settle on the ice for a moment's rest.

Another item of my list requiring explanation is "snow-drifts."

During both spring and summer there are occasional snowstorms, and

during these the birds sit tight on their nests, sometimes being covered

up by drift. As a rule the bird on the nest keeps a space open by poking

its head upwards through the snow, but sometimes it becomes completely

buried. Air diffuses so rapidly through snow that death does not take

place by suffocation, and the bird can live for weeks beneath a drift,

sitting on its nest in the little chamber which it has thawed out by its

own warmth. Generally after a few hours the snow abates and settles down

sufficiently to expose the nest once more, but sometimes a breeze

springs up which is not strong enough to blow the snow away, but simply

hardens the surface of the drift into a crust which lasts for several

weeks, and the birds are imprisoned in consequence. Then little black

dots are seen about the surface of the drift, which are the heads of

penguins thrust through their breathing holes.

On one such occasion I witnessed an interesting little incident. An

imprisoned hen was poking her neck up through her breathing hole when

her mate spied her and came up. He appeared to be very angry with her

for remaining so long on the nest, being unable to grasp the reason, and

after swearing at her for some time he started to peck at her head, she

retaliating as far as her cramped position would allow. When she

withdrew her head, he thrust his down the hole till she drove it out

again, and as this state of things seemed to be going on indefinitely, I

came up and loosened the crust of snow which imprisoned her, on which

she burst out, and seemed glad to do so. She was covered with mire,

having for many days been sitting in a pool of thaw water which had

swamped her nest and evidently spoilt the eggs. When I put her back on

the nest, she sat there for some time, but eventually they both

deserted. I should say that some hundreds of nests were spoilt in this

way.

[Illustration: Fig. 65. ADELIES ON THE ICE-FOOT]

As I photographed the above incident at intervals, different stages are

seen on Figs. 67 to 69.

I have mentioned that eggs got lost owing to cocks fighting among the

nests. When hens are incubating the eggs they never leave the nest under

any circumstances until relieved by their mates, being most reliable and

faithful to their charge. They squabble continually with their nearest

neighbours, whom they seem to hate, but only retaliate on those within

reach, using their bills only to peck at each other's heads without

shifting their position.

The cocks, however, are less dependable. Starting a quarrel in the same

way as the hens do, their militant instincts soon became aroused, on

which they are apt to jump up and start a furious fight with flippers,

staggering to and fro over their nests, and very often spilling the

eggs, which are lost in consequence. On certain occasions I was able to

interfere between the combatants, and replace the eggs, on which they

would return to their domestic duties and seem to forget the incident. A

good many eggs must have been lost in this way during the season.

Late in the season an occurrence took place for which I have never been

able to find any explanation. Occasionally I had noticed that the

penguins had crowded together more than usual on the ice-foot,

multitudes of them standing for hours without any apparent purpose. A

good idea of this scene may be got from the frontispiece.

One morning Mr. Priestley came into the hut and told me that "the

penguins were drilling on the sea-ice," and that I had better come and

look at them. I went with him to the ice-foot, and this is what we saw.

Many thousands of Adelies were on the sea-ice between the ice-foot and

the open water leads, then some quarter of a mile distant. Near the

ice-foot they were congregating in little bands of a few dozen, whilst

farther out near the water, massed bands some thousands strong stood

silent and motionless. Both the small and the large bands kept an almost

rectangular formation, whilst in each band all the birds faced the same

way, though different bands faced in different directions.

[Illustration: Fig. 66. ADELIES ON THE ICE-FOOT]

As we watched it became evident that something very unusual was going

on. First, from one of the small bands, a single bird suddenly appeared,

ran a few yards in the direction of another small band, and stopped. In

the flash of a moment the entire band from which he came executed the

movement "left turn," this bringing them all into a position facing him.

So well ordered was the movement that we could scarcely believe our

eyes. Then from the small band our single bird had approached, another

single bird ran out, upon which his own party did exactly as the first

had done, so that the two bands now stood facing one another, some

fifteen yards apart.

[Illustration: ARROW SHOWS DIRECTION IN WHICH ALL THE BIRDS FACED]

Then spontaneously, the two bands marched straight toward one another,

and joined to form one body. After this we saw the same procedure being

enacted in many other places, the penguins coming down from the rookery

and forming small bands which joined together. Then the augmented bodies

would join other augmented bodies, to form still larger ones, which then

joined together, and so on until a great mass of birds stood together in

rows all facing in one direction like a regiment of soldiers. One of

these masses stood not far from us, a compact rectangular gathering, as

shown on page 109.

They stood thus for a long time, quite motionless and silent, when

suddenly as before, a single bird darted out from among the crowd and

ran a few yards toward the open water, when, as if it had received a

word of command, every bird faced left as in the diagram below.

[Illustration: ARROW SHOWS DIRECTION IN WHICH ALL THE BIRDS FACED]

After this the whole crowd marched for the water, keeping its formation

almost unchanged till it arrived at the edge of the ice, when it halted,

and subsequently entered the water in batches.

[Illustration: Fig. 67. "An Imprisoned Hen was Poking her Head up

through her Breathing Hole"]

[Illustration: Fig. 68. "Her mate appeared to be very angry with her,

being unable to grasp the reason why she could not come off the nest"

(Page 106)]

This procedure continued for many hours, the penguins that day observing

this extraordinary behaviour, the most astonishing part of which lay in

the accuracy of their drill-like movements, so that we might have been

watching a lot of soldiers on parade. Perhaps the sudden motions of

these bodies of birds were brought about by a sound uttered by the

single bird which acted as leader, though we did not hear this. The

actual reason for this departure from their usual customs is beyond my

knowledge. There was nothing to be seen to account for it, but the

penguins evidently obeyed some instinct which affected them all on this

and two subsequent occasions, when the same thing took place.

My own idea is that in former times the penguins used to mass together

as other birds do, before their annual migration, perhaps as far back as

the day when their wings were adapted for flight, and that the

phenomenon described above was a relic of their bygone instincts.

When the chicks' down has been moulted and their plumage acquired, they

proceed to the water's edge and here they learn to swim.

In the autumn of 1912, at a small rookery which I came upon on

Inexpressible Island, I had an opportunity of watching their first

attempts in this direction. Crowds of young Adelies were to be seen on

the pebbly beach below their rookery, much of the ice having disappeared

at this late season, leaving bare patches of shingle which were very

suitable for the first swimming lesson.

Many old birds paddled in for a short distance, and crouching in a few

inches of water, splashed about with their flippers to give the

youngsters a lead. Some of the latter needed little encouragement, and

took readily to the strange element, very soon swimming about in deep

water, but others seemed more timid, and these latter were urged in

every possible way by the old birds, some of whom could be seen walking

in and out of the water, and so doing what they could to give their

charges confidence.

In this duty one or two old birds might be seen with a little crowd of

youngsters, so that evidently the social instincts which gave rise to

the creche system in the first place were extended to the tuition of the

young and thus to their preparation for the journey north.

[Illustration: Fig. 69. "When she broke out, they became reconciled"

(Page 106)]

[Illustration: Fig. 70. Adelie's Nests on Top of Cape Adare, to reach

which they must make a Precipitous Climb of 1000 feet (Page 98)]

Up in the rookery, fully fledged youngsters could be seen clamouring in

vain for food, the old birds resolutely refusing to feed them now that

they were able to forage for themselves. The adults who instructed the

young in the water had finished their moult, and were themselves ready

to depart. Many others, however, still wandered disconsolately about the

land, some of them only half fledged, and moping under boulders or any

sort of shelter from the chilly breezes, and long after all the

youngsters had departed, solitary moulting birds were to be found,

emaciated and miserable, patches of loose feathers still clinging to the

new coat which was making such a tardy growth. In some places we found

these old birds in holes under the rocks, the old moulted feathers

making some sort of a bed which helped to protect their late wearers

from the cold.

Both at Cape Adare in 1910 and at Inexpressible Island in 1911, I found

that though young and old left the rookery simultaneously at first, yet

after all the young had departed many adults still remained behind owing

to the lateness of their moult, and this is directly at variance with

the remarks of Mr. Borchgravink on the subject, because he says that the

old birds all leave the rookery first, abandoning the young, who are

driven by necessity to take to the water and learn to swim.

Well indeed was it for my companions and me that this was so, for in the

autumn of 1912 we were in sore straits for food, and had it not been

that at a very late date we collected some ninety old moulting birds on

Inexpressible Island, I doubt if we would have seen the sun rise in the

next spring.

At Cape Adare in 1911, half the rookery had departed when we arrived in

the autumn. The rest took to the sea in batches some hundreds strong.

These parties wandered about the beach and ice-foot in company for some

time, then entering the water and swimming northward they were seen no

more.

Those that moulted sometimes remained solitary whilst in the acuter

stages, but nevertheless moulting parties often were seen looking very

miserable, doubtless feeling in their unprotected state the effects of

winds which were getting keener and more severe now that the sun was

departing.

When all the youngsters had gone, some thousands of old birds still

remained, and waited for many days after they had acquired their full

plumage before they left. Then these in time disappeared, leaving the

rookery empty and desolate. On March 12 I photographed the last party:

all black-throated adults. Two days later a couple appeared on the

beach, apparently having come back for a last look at us. Then these,

too, disappeared, and as we looked at the empty silent beach we could

not help contrasting it with the noise and bustle of a short time ago.

The last penguin had gone, and the sun disappearing below the horizon,

left us alone with the Antarctic night.

APPENDIX

(A) Plumage and Soft Parts.

The following description of the plumage and soft parts of _Pygoscelis

Adeliae_, which is perfectly correct, is taken from the zoological report

of the _Discovery_ Expedition.

Soft Parts.

"_Bill_, when first hatched, blackish. A week old, black terminally,

deep red at the gape and along the cutting edges. Immature of the first

year, blackish. Adult, brick-red, the upper bill black terminally, and

the mandible black along the cutting edge.

"_Iris_, brown; varying between reddish brown and greenish brown.

"_Eyelids_, black throughout the first year; pure white in the adult at

fourteen months and onwards.

"_Feet_, flesh red; dusky when first hatched, brightening in the first

week or two. Immature and adult, pale flesh pink above, black beneath

(in some cases piebald beneath).

"_Claws_, brown."

* * * * *

In the majority of the chicks the down is uniformly dark and sooty, but

here and there, in progeny of quite normal parents, one may find

nestlings of so pale a grey as to be almost silvery white, with blackish

heads, possibly a reversion to an earlier type, and, at any rate,

suggestive of the young of the Emperor penguin, which perhaps represents

the oldest stock of all. According to Dr. Bowdler Sharp, the colour of

the head is in all cases blacker in the earlier stages than the rest of

the body.(8)

(8) This was invariable at Cape Adare.

As the chick ages the colour of its down changes, and all of it takes on

a dull rusty brown colour. As it moults the abdomen and thighs change

first, and white feathers appear in place of the down. Then come changes

on the head, round the bill, and at the tail; the upper breast, neck,

and back being the last parts to moult.

The feet, which in the young nestling have been almost black, change in

colour to a brick-red that shows up very markedly against the rusty

brown down, looking as if the legs were raw and inflamed. Later the

permanent flesh colour is acquired, with black plantar surfaces. The

nails are black at first, and later change to brown.

When the nestling down is shed, the resulting plumage is that of the

adult, except that the throat is white instead of black. The upper part

of the head and neck are bluish black, the throat, fore-neck, breast,

and abdomen being a pure dazzling metallic white, a sharp line

separating the white from the black areas. The flippers are the same

bluish "tar" black on the back and white beneath.

In addition to the distinctive pure white plumage of the throat, the

immature bird differs from the adult in one very marked particular,

which is that the eyelids are black, as in the chick, and do not acquire

the staring whiteness which is so distinctive of the adult Adelie

penguin, increasing, as it does, the white area of the sclerotic so that

the bird has the appearance of being perpetually surprised or very

angry.

The iris is a rich reddish brown in the adults, but variable in the

young.

At Cape Adare the light grey "silvery" coloured chicks mentioned by Dr.

Wilson were by no means uncommon; in fact, quite a large proportion of

the chicks had very light-coloured down. This is shown in some of the

specimens I brought back to the British Museum.

(B) Variations.

Variations occasionally are met with in the plumage and soft parts of

Adelies. The least rare of these consist of tufts of white feathers

amongst the black plumage of the head. Several specimens so marked were

seen at Cape Adare during the summer of 1911-12.

When these white tufts were present the feathers comprising them were

usually longer than the black feathers among which they appeared, so

that they stuck out in an untidy manner, and were very conspicuous.

In marked distinction to the slight variations above described were the

three "Isabelline" varieties that I preserved, and are now to be seen in

the British Museum collection. As these variations are very startling,

and of the greatest interest, I give below a full description of their

plumage and soft parts.

_First specimen_ captured on the Cape Adare rookery on November 4, 1911.

_Iris_, light brown. _Eyelids_, white. _Bill_, light brown. _Feet_,

white. _Claws_, light brown.

The whole of the area covered by black feathers in the normal bird was

covered by those of a very light fawn, somewhat darker on the neck and

shoulders than elsewhere. _Sex_, male.

_Second specimen_ captured on November 14, 1911.

_Iris_, light brown. _Eyelids_, white. _Bill_, light brown; mandible,

blackish on dorsum; maxilla, blackish on cutting edges. _Feet_, white on

both surfaces. _Claws_, light brown.

In place of the black feathers of the normal bird, there was a

fawn-coloured plumage, darkest on head and neck; lightest at bottom of

back, back of flippers, and on shoulders.

_Sex_, female.

_Third specimen_ captured on December 23, 1911.

_Iris_, light brown. _Feet_, browny white. _Claws_, brown. _Bill_,

brown; very dark on dorsum of mandible. _Eyelids_, white with a pink

tinge.

In place of the black feathers of the normal bird, this specimen had

those of a very light cream colour: in fact very slightly darker than

the white area but deepening in shade to light fawn on the head, neck,

and shoulders.

_Sex_, male.

The second specimen had mated with a normal cock. In each case the

Isabelline birds were very much more docile than the normal forms. For

instance, they did not struggle when picked up, as the others would have

done, and the third specimen, when brought into our hut, gazed around

with curiosity and apparent contentment, and showed not the least

resentment at its captivity. A normal bird would have struggled and

fought to the last extremity. Each bird was killed with chloroform.

So carefully did we keep the entire rookery under observation that I do

not think it likely there were any more Isabelline forms. Thus we can

conclude 3/750000 roughly represents the proportion of Isabelline forms

among the species.