570 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



from the vicious pecks and the vigorous blows from the wings 

 of the birds. The interest and the novelty of the sight of 

 30 or 40 acres of penguins made up for the deafening noise 

 and the fearful smell, and we found that if we stood still the 

 birds did not take the trouble to move or bite. Some of the 

 birds were fighting with their neighbours, standing still, either 

 in a puddle or on a wet slimy stone, but keeping their wings 

 and bill in constant action, their apparent object being to 

 make everybody keep his regulation distance from the others. 

 No sign of a nest is to be seen. Subangular fragments of rock 

 covered with slimy black mud cover the ground, and the 

 beautiful white breasts of the birds were simply filthy with 

 the splashings. Some few birds just at the edge of the crowd 

 (late arrivals, I suppose) had eggs not yet hatched, one egg 

 to each bird, and this egg was carefully carried on the 

 two big black feet, with a fold of the skin of the abdomen 

 tucked over it. They even found it possible to move about 

 like this, with the egg in this curious position, much re- 

 sembling a boy in a sack-race. There were others whose 

 anxieties were over, and who had the care of a fat little 

 chicken, as black as a coal and very helpless. They all en- 

 deavoured to get as far under their parent as possible ; but 

 these seemed to be very little protection for them. During 

 incubation I am told that the male relieves the female about 

 every two days, but I cannot affirm this of my own know- 

 ledge. There is no perceptible difference between the males 

 and the females. The distance allowed around each bird 

 seemed to be about 1ft. 4in., and any encroachment on this 

 area caused an immediate squabble, which only ceased when 

 the intruder had been driven out and order restored. This 

 large rookery reaches from the crown of the beach to the foot 

 of the hill-slope or cliff, and appeared to be devoted entirely 

 to the breeding birds, a constant stream of birds passing up 

 and down from their stations in the rookery to the sea and 

 returning again. Some of the young birds were of large size, 

 and the down which covers their body of a dark-brown or 

 black colour. In a few cases I saw the young birds fed, their 

 parent giving up some part of its own dinner. I could not 

 ascertain if a bird always returned to exactly ^the same spot; 

 from the amount of struggling and pushing going on I should 

 imagine that they did. The slopes of the beach in front of 

 the breeding-ground were apparently devoted to the bachelors, 

 and the birds who occupied various nooks and corners and 

 small grassy plots between the tussocks seemed to attach 

 themselves to these particular places. I marked one fine bird 

 that belonged to a party of about twenty who occupied the 

 open grassy place just under the window of the small room in 

 which 1 slept, and, with the exception of an occasional short 



