THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 277 



plants with her. The whole structure looks like a little 

 floating island carried away by the labor of the grebe, which 

 moves in the centre of a mass of verdure. 



Thus the truth is more extraordinary than fiction. 1 



CHAPTER VII. 



MINERS AND MASONS. 



Every traveller who approaches the shores of the 

 southern seas is struck by the sight of the innumerable 

 flocks of penguins which swarm upon them. 



Birds in their radical organization, they are quite fish in 

 their habits. Their wings, transformed into fins, render 

 them unfit for flight, and their feet are only suited for 

 swimming. Hence, not being able to rise in the air, or 

 escape by running, they stumble and fall to the ground at 

 every step they take when they are trying to escape from 

 some aggressor. The sailors calculate upon their falling, 

 when they wish to kill them, and often make a complete 

 massacre of them. But matters are quite different when 

 the penguins gain the water, their favorite element. They 

 precipitate themselves into it from the tops of rocks ten to 

 fifteen feet above the waves, and, having reached the sea, 

 dive and swim with a swiftness which mocks that of the 



1 All the details related here as to the little grebe (Colymbus minor) were 

 given me by M. Nourry, director of the Museum of Natural History at Elbceuf. 

 The sketch representing the nests of this bird was also executed by this dis- 

 tinguished ornithologist, who often lived in the midst of the forests in order to 

 study the manners of birds unobserved. 



