A PECULIAR PEOPLE 15 



leaping out of the water, and the game of "touch 

 last" on the sea-ice. A favorite ploy 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 

 device has been evolved. The parents "pool their 

 offspring" in groups which are left in charge of 

 a few conscientious persons (there is great indi- 

 viduality among the members of the penguinery) 

 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 and they remain faithful to their own 

 creches. On the whole, the Adelie's lot appears to 

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

 " ecstatic " attitude which they assume, and the 

 weird "chant de 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. Levick's interpretation is probably correct, that 

 although what he saw was not directly connected 

 with migration, it may represent an echo of a by- 

 gone habit of massing together in large numbers 

 before the autumnal journey northwards. The 

 journey is, of course, still undertaken, but little 



