ADELIE PENGUINS 



of the bills, which often became a good deal swollen 

 in consequence. Often also their beaks would 

 become interlocked. They would keep up this 

 peck-pecking hour after hour in a most relentless 

 fashion. (Fig. 12.) On one occasion I saw a hen 

 succeed in driving another off one of the old nests 

 which she occupied. The vanquished one squatted 

 on the ground a few yards away, with rumpled 

 feathers and " huffy " appearance, whilst the other 

 walked on to the nest and assumed the " ecstatic " 

 attitude (page 46). Nothing but animosity could 

 have induced this act, as thousands of old unoccu- 

 pied nests lay all around. 



About 9 P.M. a light snowstorm came on, 

 and those few birds who had taken possession 

 of nests, left them, and all now lay in the hollows, 

 nestling into the fine drift which soon covered the 

 ground to the extent of a few inches. A group of 

 about a dozen penguins which arrived near the ice- 

 foot in the morning, halted on the sea-ice without 

 ascending the little slope leading to the rookery, 

 and stayed there all day. 



With the few exceptions I have noted above, all 

 the birds that had arrived so far either were 

 much fatigued, or else they realized that they had 

 come a little too soon and were waiting for some 

 20 



