DOMESTIC LIFE 



penguins that day observing this extraordinary 

 behaviour, the most astonishing part of which 

 lay in the accuracy of their drill-hke movements, so 

 that we might have been watching a lot of soldiers 

 on parade. Perhaps the sudden motions of these 

 bodies of birds were brought about by a sound 

 uttered by the single bird which acted as leader, 

 though we did not hear this. The actual reason 

 for this departure from their usual customs is 

 beyond my knowledge. There was nothing to 

 be seen to account for it, but the penguins evidently 

 obeyed some instinct which affected them all on 

 this and two subsequent occasions, when the same 

 thing took place. 



My own idea is that in former times the penguins 

 used to mass together as other birds do, before 

 their annual migration, perhaps as far back as 

 the day when their wings were adapted for flight, 

 and that the phenomenon described above was 

 a relic of their bygone instincts. 



When the chicks' down has been moulted 

 and their plumage acquired, they proceed to the 

 water's edge and here they learn to swim. 



In the autumn of 1912, at a small rookery which 

 I came upon on Inexpressible Island, I had an 

 opportunity of watching their first attempts in this 



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