ADELIE PENGUINS 



to be thinning. For an hour in the forenoon it 

 stopped altogether, and at the end of this time a 

 storm of wind from the south struck us and con- 

 tinued for another hour with thick drift. Probably 

 clear of Cape Adare the wind had been blowing 

 before it reached us, and had stopped the birds' 

 progress across the ice. 



During the storm the rookery was completely 

 silenced, most of the birds lying with their heads to 

 the wind. A good many skuas arrived that day. 

 Some chips of white, glistening quartz had been 

 thrown down by our hut door recently, and later I 

 found two of these chips in a nest about thirty 

 yards away, showing up brightly against the black 

 basalt of which all the pebbles on the rookery were 

 composed. 



As a rule the penguins were careful to select 

 rounded stones for their nests, but these fragments 

 of quartz were jagged and uncomfortable, and most 

 unsuitable for nest building. Thus it was evidently 

 the brightness of the stones which attracted them. 

 Whilst I looked on, the owners of the pieces of 

 quartz were wrangling with their neighbours, and 

 a penguin in a nest behind shot out its beak and 

 stole one of the pieces, placing it in its own nest. 

 1 had brought Campbell out to show him the pieces 

 48 



