II 



A PECULIAR PEOPLE 



THE story goes that a lady seeing penguins for 

 the first time, and that, as it happened, in 

 the sea-lions' inclosure at the Zoo, remarked that 

 it was strange that the young seals were so like 

 birds. She might well be excused for an error 

 that showed an unprejudiced mind, for quainter 

 creatures than penguins it would be hard to 

 imagine. Their striking attitudes, now upright 

 like sentinels and again groveling on the ice like 

 their reptilian ancestors; their versatility in move- 

 ment, gamboling like porpoises, swimming like 

 ducks, diving with the help of their flippers to 

 a depth of ten fathoms, toddling on the ice like top- 

 heavy babies, and tobogganing in a manner all their 

 own; their daring surrender of wings in exchange 

 for flippers; their way of molting their feathers 

 in great patches; and a score of other remarkable 

 features mark them out among birds as a very 

 peculiar people. But it is when we inquire into 

 their habits that their most striking peculiarities 

 are discovered, and here we are especially indebted 

 to Staff-Surgeon Murray Levick, R.N., member of 

 the "Terra Nova" (1910) Antarctic Expedition, 

 who has got nearer the heart of the penguin of the 



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