5G EDWARD A. WILSON. 



Fig. 5, which presents the head of a normal adult bird, it will be seen that in the latter, 

 whereas the leathers of the face and crown are flattened and closely appressed to the 

 head, the feathers of the occiput and neck are raised and form a ruff or collar. It is 

 hardly necessary to say that this ruff is not peculiar to the isabelline bird ; it occurs also 

 constantly in th(jse of normal colouration. With the erection of these feathers is 

 associated the wide opening of the eyelids and the exposure of the white sclerotic 

 of the eyeballs, giving the bird an appearance which we are apt to associate with 

 fright. In the Adelie Penguin, however, the appearance is certainly intended 

 rather to induce terror in others, though one may say with truth that any great 

 excitement will cause the erection of this crest, with every sign of rage in 

 voice and attitude. There is no doubt that the Adelie Penguin is a quick-tempered 

 and withal a very plucky bird, though there are sundry points about its character 

 which show a most deplorable lack of the power to draw logical conclusions from 

 even the most suggestive facts. In short, however quaint and attractive may 

 be its personality, one cannot but consider it to Ije a bird of very small and unde- 

 veloped intelligence. For example, it has no enemies to fear save such as live and 

 feed habitually in the water ; these are the Sea Leopard and the Killer Whale. 

 Its one and only strong idea of danger in the abstract is therefore connected with the 

 water, and its power of logical deduction is insufficient to grasp the fact that man 

 appearing on the surface of an icefloe and knocking over its companions one by one, 

 can be avoided by leaving the surface of the ice and entering the water. It 

 matters not how many men and dogs may chase it on the icefloe, the more terrified it 

 becomes, the more persistently will it shrink from entering the water. Again, one 

 would have thought that seeing its enemy, the Skua, ravish eggs and young ones daily 

 throughout the nesting season, it would have been a simple logical conclusion to arrive 

 at, that the Skuas were better ousted from the rookeries ; but instead we find them 

 constantly in friendly neighbourhood, their nests often within a few yards of a 

 group of penguins' nests and in the very heart of a rookery of jjeuguins. There seems 

 to be in this a deficiency of common sense, since a want of pluck can hardly be 

 considered one of the bird's faults. When confronted l>y man in the rookery the pair 

 will range up one behind the other as close as can be, with ruffles up and every sign of 

 an anger which soon breaks into assault and battery. Certainly there are a few birds 

 in every rookery easily recognised as cowards at sight, for on approaching them one 

 sees the feathers lie flatter alons; the head and neck instead of risina; into the warlike 

 ruffle, and in a moment they are off" as fast as their legs can carry them ; but this is 

 not the rule. Hardly a l)ird l)ut begins to growl and glare with staring eyeballs and 

 ruffling feathers as one approaches his sitting mate, and hardly a bird but will without 

 hesitation attack the most aggressive biped disturber of its peace. 



The black-throated Adelie Penguin, although its wanderings are limited strictly 

 to the icy regions, is a regular migrant within those limits. No one else has had 

 quite the opportunity that M. Eacovitza of the ' Belgica ' had of studying its move- 



