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MARION ISLAND. 17 



run with their bodies held perfectly upright, getting over the 

 ground pretty fast, and do not hop at all. A good many were 

 in bad plumage, moulting, but there were plenty also in the 

 finest plumage. 



On the small area of the rookery, which consisted of a flat 

 space sheltered all round by grass slopes, and which formed a 

 sort of bay amongst these, communicating with the larger area 

 by two comparatively narrow passages, was the breeding esta- 

 blishment. 



These penguins are said by some observers to set apart regular 

 separate spaces in their rookeries for moulting, for birds in clean 

 plumage not breeding, and again for breeding birds. Here the 

 breeding ground was quite separate and the young and breeding 

 pairs were confined to this smaller sheltered area. This was 

 the only King Penguin rookery which I saw in full action. 

 At Kerguelen's Land, the King Penguins were only met with in 

 scattered groups of a dozen and twenty or so, and they were 

 then not breeding, but only moulting. 



On this breeding ground, at its lower portion, numbers of 

 penguins were reclining on their belhes, and I thought at first 

 they might be covering eggs, but on driving them up, I saw they 

 were only resting. There was a drove of about a hundred pen- 

 guins with young birds amongst them. The young were most 

 absurd objects. They were as tall as their parents, and moved 

 about bolt upright with their beaks in the air in the same 

 manner ; but they were covered with a thick coating of a light 

 chocolate down, looking like very fine brown fur. 



The down is at least two inches deep on the birds' bodies, 

 and gives them a curious inflated appearance. They have a 

 most comical look, as they run off to jostle their way in amongst 

 the old ones. They seemed to run rather better than the adults, 

 but perhaps that was fancy. 



Absurd in appearance as these young are, those that are just 

 dropping the clown and assuming the white plumage of the 

 adults, are far more so. Some are to be seen with the brown 

 down in large irregular patches, and the white feathers showing 

 out between these. In others the down remains only about 

 neck and head, and in the last stage a sort of ruff or collar of 



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