DOMESTIC LIFE 



had come, to spend a few more hours in skylarking 

 and splashing about in the sea. 



In speaking of these games of the penguins, I 

 wish to lay emphasis on the fact that these hours 

 of relaxation play a large part in their lives during 

 the advanced part of the breeding period. They 

 would spend hours in playing at a sort of " touch 

 last " on the sea-ice near the water's edge. They 

 never played on the ground of the rookery itself, 

 but only on the sea-ice and the ice-foot and in the 

 water, and I may here mention another favourite 

 pastime of theirs. I have said that the tide 

 flowed past the rookery at the rate of some five or 

 six knots. Small ice-floes are continually drifting 

 past in the water, and as one of these arrived at 

 the top of the ice-foot, it would be boarded by a 

 crowd of penguins, sometimes until it could hold 

 no more. (Fig. 39.) This "excursion boat," as 

 we used to call it, would float its many occupants 

 down the whole length of the ice-foot, and if 

 it passed close to the edge, those that rode on 

 the floes would shout at the knots of penguins 

 gathered along the ice-foot (Fig. 40) who would 

 shout at them in reply, so that a gay bantering 

 seemed to accompany their passage past the 

 rookery. 



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