ADELIE PENGUINS 



to hunt in little batches in consequence. (Figs. 

 27, 28, and 29.) 



From the particulars I have just given it is also 

 evident that a wife and home once obtained could 

 only be kept by dint of further battling and 

 constant vigilance during the first stages of 

 domesticity, when thousands of lusty cocks were 

 pouring into the rookery, and it was not unusual to 

 see a strange cock paying court to a mated hen 

 in the absence of her husband until he returned 

 to drive away the interloper, but I do not think 

 that this ever occurred after the eggs had come and 

 the regular family life begun, couples after this 

 being perfectly faithful to one another. 



The instance I have given of a newly arrived 

 cock by dumb show pretending to take a stone 

 and place it before a mated hen, is typical of 

 the sort of first overture one sees, though more 

 frequently an actual stone was tendered. While on 

 this subject I had better mention a most interesting 

 thing which occurred to one of my companions. 

 One day as he was sitting quietly on some shingle 

 near the ice-foot, a penguin approached him, 

 and after eyeing him for a little, walked right up 

 to him and nibbled gently at one of the legs of 

 his wind-proof trousers. Then it walked away, 

 44 



