4*78 ANNUAL HEPOUT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



are also better constructed, most frequently made of stones to which 

 they add some tail feathers. In November they lay two eggs, white, 

 slightly tinged with azure. Fond of family life, these penguins show 

 great care in bringing up their offspring. If they are timid, careless, 

 and awkward, they have at least one good quality — the tenderness 

 they show toward their young. 



Much more interesting is the Adelie penguin (Pygoscelis adelix 

 Hombron and Jacquinot). Its head and back are black with bluish 

 reflections, its short beak brownish-black, the pupil of the eye 

 encircled with a white iris. 



From whatever side one approaches the Antarctic, whether from 

 south of America or from the longitude of Africa or of Australia, 

 throughout the cu'cumference of this vast polar continent, the Adelie 

 penguin is always one of the animals encountered by the voyager on 

 his route. This bird is everywhere, watches over everything; it is 

 to him, indeed, that the Antarctic belongs. Curious, unruly, violent, 

 a chatterbox and blusterer, of an extraordinary liveliness, you should 

 see him dart like an arrow from the water to a height of more than 2 

 meters, and fall vertically down again on the piece of ice or the rock 

 chosen for his resting place. 



Never leaving these regions nor passing north of 60° south latitude, 

 they people the isles of the frontier, the low elevations of the 

 Antarctic continent, on which, during a few months of the year, the 

 snow in melting leaves some clear spaces of soil. 



On slightly uneven locations they settle in numerous colonies, 

 during the period of breeding and raising theu" young, forming these 

 noisy cities, these rookeries, which number thousands, often even 

 tens of thousan<ls, and sometimes even hundreds of thousands of 

 individuals. 



After having abandoned their rookeries for the winter, which they 

 pass on the open sea, opposite the land ice, the AdeHes return in 

 October to their cities and immediately take possession of their rocks 

 again. Indeed these rocks are really theirs, for according to the 

 observations made on the spot at Petermann's Island, where the 

 Pourquoi Pas wintered, I have ascertained, in the case of the Gentoo 

 as well as of the Adehe, that the same birds come back to the same 

 rookery year after year. 



When the expedition arrived at Petermann's Island in Februaiy, 

 1909, I put on the right leg of several penguins (young and old) some 

 celluloid rings of various colors, according to the age of the birds. 

 In October and November, 1909, on the return of the birds to their 

 rookeries I had the good fortune to recover a score of adults marked 

 by me nine months before. I did not, however, recover any of the 

 young, wliich seems to indicate that they do not return to their birth- 

 place and do not mate until 2 years old. 



