Chap. viL] KING PENGUINS. 1 53 



tions, a larger and smaller, by some grassy mounds. The 

 flat space itself had a filthy black slimy surface ; but the soil 

 was trodden hard and flat. About two-thirds of the space 

 of one of the portions of the rookery, the larger one, was 

 occupied by King Penguins, standing bolt upright, with their 

 beaks upturned, side \)y side, as thick as they could pack, and 

 jostling one another as one disturbed them. In the figure the 

 birds' heads are drawn as if held horizontally. This is unnatural ; 

 the head and neck should be stretched out vertically, quite 

 straight, with the tip of the beak pointed directly upwards. 



The King Penguins stand as high as a man's middle ; they 

 are distinguished at once not only by their size, but by two 

 narrow streaks of bright orange yellow, one on each side of the 

 glistening white throat. 



Penguins were to be seen coming from and going to the sea 

 from the rookery, but singly, and not in companies like the 

 Crested Penguins. The King Penguins, when disturbed, made 

 a loud sound like " nrr-i/rr-urr." They run with their bodies 

 held perfectly upright, getting over the ground pretty fast, and 

 do not hop at all. A good many were in bad plumage, moult- 

 ing, but there were plenty also in the finest plumage. 



On the smnll area of the rookery, v/hich consisted of a flat 

 space sheltered all around by grass slopes, and which formed a 

 sort of bay amongst these, communicating with the larger area 

 by two comparatively narrow passages, was the breeding esta- 

 blishment. 



These penguins are said, by some observers, to set apart 

 regular separate spaces in their rookeries for moulting, f(,r birds 

 in clean plumage not breeding, and again for breeding birds. 

 Here the breeding ground was quite separate, and the young 

 and breeding pairs were confined to this smaller sheltered area. 

 This was the only King Penguin rookery which I saw in full 

 action. At Kerguelen's Land, the King Penguins were only 

 met with in scattered groups of a dozen and twenty or so, and 

 they were then not breeding, but only moulting. 



On this breeding ground, at its lower portion, numbers of 

 penguins were reclining on their bellies, and I thought at first 

 they might be covering eggs, but on driving them up, I saw they 

 were only resting. There was a drove of about a hundred pen- 

 guins with young birds amongst them. The young were most 

 absurd objects. They were as tall as their parents, and moved 

 about bolt upright with their beaks in the air in the same 

 manner ; but they were covered with a thick coating of a light 

 chocolate down, looking like very fine brown fur. 



The down is at least two inches deep on the birds' bodies, 

 and gives them a curious inflated appearance. They have a 



