THE BIRDS OF SOUTH GEORGIA 591 



touches the ground. They frequently trumpet to each other. They do this by stretching 

 up to their full height and, pointing the bill straight up, make a loud, almost musical 

 trumpeting sound. Immediately after they have done this they hold the head stiffly 

 at right angles to the neck, whilst the latter is still stretched up, and look straight 

 forward for a moment. They then resume the normal attitude with the head drawn 

 down on to the shoulders. 



When incubating the King Penguins sit close together and are very quarrelsome, 

 stabbing at each other with their sharp bills and dealing each other resounding blows 

 with the flippers (Plate LVI, fig. 2). They can only shuffle about slowly when they are 

 carrying the egg on their feet and often help themselves along with the bill and flippers. 

 There is always a number of non-breeding and moulting birds, as well as large young 

 ones, standing about the rookeries. 



In walking these birds do not use their flippers as balancers, as do the other species 

 of penguins, but carry them hanging at the sides. When a group is walking together 

 they go in single file. If they are hurried they fall forward on the chest and toboggan 

 along, pushing ofl^ with the feet and using the flippers to help them. They are not 

 disturbed by the presence of man, merely walking disdainfully away if approached, 

 and do not run and toboggan unless chased. 



The time of the moult is very irregular. Some birds were observed moulting in 

 November and others as late as March. The old feathers come off in patches, leaving 

 the new ones exposed, and the covering of the bill and feet is also shed. The young ones 

 are as big as their parents by November. They are covered in long woolly down, which 

 adheres to the ends of the adult plumage feathers underneath, so that they look much 

 bigger than the adults (Plate LVI, fig. 3). This coat is very necessary as they spend the 

 winter in the rookery, but in the spring and summer, before it is shed, the birds appear 

 to suffer from the heat if the sun happens to shine, and sit panting with open bills. 

 The bill is black, the feet greenish brown and the iris brown. Some of them commence 

 to shed the down as early as November, but most of them lose it in December and 

 January. It goes first on the flippers, then on the belly and back, and last on the head 

 and neck. The first adult plumage is similar to that of the old ones, but the orange 

 on the neck and breast is represented by yellow, and the black of the head has a brownish 

 tinge. 



The young have a shrill whistling cry, and they wander about the rookery begging 

 for food from the old ones (Plate LVI, fig. 4). They walk up to an old one and start 

 whistling and chirping, all the time nibbling its beak. The old one looks extremely 

 bored, but if the young one worries it long enough it brings up into the throat some 

 food which the young one takes by putting its bill into that of the other. The food 

 consists of cephalopods. 



The bill of the adult is black with a strip of yellowish red on the side of the basal 

 half of the mandible. The iris is light brown and the pupil is polygonal. The feet are 

 black. 



