THE ADELIE PENGUIN. 55 



suggest that the tendency to vary lies in the distribution of black and white aliuut 

 the head and neck, which is exactly what one would expect, because it is the 

 recognition area, so to speak, of the various species of penguin — the part which alone 

 is open to view as the l)ird is floating on the water. The rest of the body would 

 hardly sufiice to difierentiate a dozen species, and it would be no easy task to 

 differentiate between the birds at sight if the heads were taken off at the shoulders. 

 It is in the head that we have the most marked differences in the build and colour of 

 the beak, wide differences in the colour of the iris, white throats in some and black in 

 others, white bands across the forehead, black bands again across the throat, and a 

 variety of shading and arrangement in the golden superciliary plumes and frontal 

 crests, as though from time immemorial variations in the head had been selected and 

 developed, and the process still goes on. 



Hence we get uniformity in those parts which are useless for specific distinction, 

 but are probably of an advantageous invisibility under water ; and a tendency to 

 variation chiefly in those parts which carry specific recognition marks. But one may 

 argue that, if the distinctive specific characteristics are to be looked for in the head, 

 there is every reason why the head marks should not vary, and it is certainly hard to 

 see why in any particular part there should be associated at once the necessity for 

 uniformity and a special tendency to variation. 



One must allow that whereas in the parts which do not show above water the 

 colouring is governed mainly by the necessity for protective invisibility, yet in the parts 

 that do show above the water there is an inherent tendency to vary, from the very 

 fact that the physiological processes leading to pigmentation have become concentrated 

 in them ; a concentration which results from the need for recognition marks in the parts 

 that do come easily into view as the penguin floats on the surface of the water. That 

 the vmder parts should all be white seems naturally to result from the necessity for 

 invisibility from below, where lurk, not only the fish that the bird must catch, but 

 the seals and whales that would prey upon the bird. 



Whatever may be the reason, the fact remains that the demarcation line between 

 the black and white is seen to vary about the head and neck more frequently than 

 elsewhere. And the only other variation noticed in this species was in the case of 

 the foot illustrated in Fig. G of Plate X., where the blackening of the sole was 

 irregular, and also in the extent of the black tip to be seen on the under surface of 

 the wing, which varies within wide limits, and which, being common to several species, 

 cannot be considered of much specific value. 



There is still one other variation of the Adelie Penguin that must l)e mentioned. 

 It is the pale or isabelline variety, of which we obtained a specimen in each of two 

 successive years at the Cape Crozier rookery. Both were adults, and in Ijoth the parts 

 which should have been black and liluish black were buff or brownish-buft' ; the feet 

 were pale flesh colour, the nails light brown and the iris also brown. 



The head of this bird is figured in Plate IX., Fig. 6, and in comparing it with 



