CHAP. III.] BAHIA TO THE CAPE. 159 



width and about a foot liigli, and the spaces between them one 

 to two feet wide. The tuft of thick grass -stems — seven or 

 eight feet in height — rises strong and straight for a yard or so, 

 and then the culms separate from one anotlier and mingle with 

 those of the neighboring tussocks. This makes a brush very 

 difficult to make one's way through, for the heads of grass are 

 closely entangled togethei- on a level wath the face and chest. 

 In this scrub one of the crested penguins — probably Eudyptes 

 chrysocoma, called by the sealers, in common with other species 

 of the genus Eudyptes^ the ''rock -hopper" — has established a 

 rookery. From a great distance, even so far as the hut or the 

 shijD, one could hear an incessant noise like the barking of a 

 myriad of dogs in all possible keys ; and as w^e came near the 

 place, bands of penguins were seen constantly going and return- 

 ing between the rookery and the sea. All at once, out at sea, a 

 hundred yards or so from the shore, the water is seen in mo- 

 tion, a dark-red beak, and sometimes a pair of eyes, appearing 

 now and then for a moment above the surface. The moving 

 water approaches the shore in a wedge-shape, and with great 

 rapidity a band of perhaps from three to four hundred pen- 

 guins scramble out upon the stones, at once exchanging the 

 vigorous and graceful movements and attitudes for which they 

 are so remarkable while in the water for helpless and ungainly 

 ones, tumbling over the stones, and apparently with difficulty 

 assuming their normal position upright on their feet — which 

 are set far back — and with their lin-like wings hanging in a 

 useless kind of way at their sides. When they have got fairly 

 out of the water, beyond the reach of the surf, they stand to- 

 gether for a few minutes, drying and dressing themselves and 

 talking loudly, apparently congratulating themselves on their 

 safe landing, and then they scramble in a body over tlie stony 

 beach — many falling and picking themselves up again with the 

 help of their flappers on the way — and make straight for one 

 particular gangway into the scrub, along which they waddle in 



