THE EMPEROR PENGUIN. 17 



efforts to escape the birds will at once rise to their feet and show fight, facing their 

 antagonists and using bill and flippers simultaneously, and the stroke of an Emperor 

 Penguin's wing, if caught fairly on the hand or on the shin, leaves a bruise which will 

 be felt for many weeks. 



When pressed to travel as fast as possible they glide along on the ice at the rate 

 of about 8 or 10 miles an hour (see fig. 11, p. 18). This rate is, of course, much 

 exceeded in the water, where their speed and dodging power probably rivals that of 

 fishes, seals, and whales. They swim with their wings, and may often be seen to leap 

 from the water and land upright on a shelf of ice at least four feet above the surface. 

 Their only enemies, so far as is known, are also inhabitants of the water ; and their 

 ideas of fear are connected chiefly with that element, as in the case of Ade"lie Penguins. 



We once found the ragged skin of an Emperor Penguin in the stomach of a 

 12-foot Sea Leopard (Stenor/rinchus leptonyx), and this seal has been known to take 

 Adelie Penguins (Pygoscelis adelise) in the water as they were thrown to it from 

 the ship. There is therefore no doubt that the Sea Leopard is one of the 

 Emperor's active foes. Probably none of the other seals would attempt to molest 

 it ; but the Killer Whale ( Orca gladiator], whose food is seal and dolphin, would 

 almost certainly take Emperor Penguins if they came in its way. This however we 

 did not see ; nor did we anywhere come across another dead Emperor Penguin, except 

 on one occasion, when the mangled skin of an adult bird turned almost inside out floated 

 past our ship as we entered McMurdo Sound. Probably it was the remains of a bird 

 which had died and had formed a feast for some Skua (Megalestris maccormicki) or 

 Giant Petrel (Ossifraga gigantea). Neither of these birds, however, should be 

 considered the natural enemy of the Emperor Penguin, for I do not believe that 

 this Petrel attacks things living, as a rule; nor has the Skua any opportunity to 

 attack the Emperor Penguin's chickens, since at the time of their infancy, in the 

 winter and early spring, they are many hundreds of miles to the south of the region 

 then infested by the Skuas. 



The Emperor Penguin sleeps either standing in the upright position with its head 

 turned back over the shoulder so that the tip of the beak rests under the back of the 

 wing (see fig. 14, p. 22), or else in the prone position with the head drawn in upon the 

 neck. The positions assumed by the chick are seen to be slightly different (figs. 19, 20, 

 p. 26). Both attitudes are to be seen in the photograph taken by Lieutenant-Engineer 

 Skelton (fig. 5, p. 8). Whether the former posture is a relic of days gone by, when the 

 bird had a fully feathered wing and was capable of flight, it is not easy to say ; but it 

 is suggestive to see it take up an attitude which would have been comfortable when 

 it had thick warm feathers into which to breathe. It may be that the position is 

 merely a convenient one for balance, and it is quite certain that all comfort must 

 have disappeared since the wing became converted into a bony flipper. The prone 

 position is certainly more reasonable with a view to economising body-heat. Both 

 attitudes are assumed by the chick in its earliest stages when taken from the adult. 



