A PECULIAR PEOPLE 



high, for which the robber-gulls or skuas and the 

 reckless combats of the penguin-cocks are largely 

 to blame. 



There is a lighter side to the life of the penguins, 

 for they show a taste for certain simple games which 

 they play on the sea-ice on their way to and from 

 their bath. There is the diving, in which the 

 succession is so rapid "as to have the appearance 

 of a lot of shot poured out of a bottle into the water " ; 

 there is the " porpoising," the leaping out of the 

 water, and the game of " touch last " on the sea-ice. 

 A favourite play was to board an ice-floe till it would 

 hold no more, and get carried by the tide to the lower 

 end of the rookery, where every bird would suddenly 

 jump off and swim back against the stream to catch 

 a fresh floe and get another ride down. To find the 

 time for all this fun without leaving the chicks to 

 perish, a strange arrangement has been devised. 

 The parents pool their children in groups which are 

 left in charge of a few conscientious persons who 

 ward off the skuas and keep, or try to keep, the 

 chicks from straying. The holidaying parents 

 bring food at intervals, when their conscience smites 

 them. On the whole, the AdelVs lot appears to 

 be a happy one, and we read with pleasure of the 

 " ecstatic " attitude which they assume, and the 

 weird " song of satisfaction " which they utter 

 when all is well with their world. 



One other picture is surely unique in the annals of 

 natural history. It was a sort of drilling on the ice, 

 a congregating of thousands, and the execution 

 of ordered movements for hours on end. Dr. 



225 p 



