THE EMPEROR PENGUIN. 23 



The most puzzling fact about the Emperor Penguin is that the colouring of its 

 nestling is totally different from that of the nestling of the King. Previous to its 

 discovery in 1902 it would have been deemed reasonable to surmise that the chicken 

 of the Emperor when found would be uniformly dark brown in colour and hardly dis- 

 tinguishable from the chicken of the King. But this is far from being the case. 

 In direct contrast, it has a jet-black head with a pure white area surrounding each 

 of the eyes. The black of the head starting from the base of the upper bill, and 

 including the forehead, lores and chin, is continued over the crown to the nape 

 of the neck. There it blends with the silver grey of the back, to be continued as 

 a grey or blackish band, almost, but in most cases not quite, meeting on the fore 

 neck as a collar. Between this collar and the chin, which is jet black, the throat 

 is pure white, as is also a rounded area including the cheek, eyebrow, and ear coverts. 

 The minute little tuft of stiff feathers which constitutes the tail is jet black, and the 

 whole of the remainder of the down covering the body is silvery white or grey, with 

 this notable peculiarity, that the darker area is on the under surface, extending from 

 the fore neck to the vent, over breast and abdomen, whereas the whiter area is on the 

 dorsal aspect including the nape, mantle, scapulars, back and rump, as well as the 

 minute and downy-coated flippers, thus reversing the usual order, in which the 

 under parts are lighter, or at least not darker than the upper (figs. 16, 17, p. 24). 



The complete absence of any protrusion of the brow or superciliary prominence 

 gives the bird a quizzical look which is always entertaining. The movements of the 

 eye are quick, and the upper lid is raised to look upwards without much motion of 

 the head. The outer coverings of the eye are almost flush with the outer contour 

 of the face and head ; there is no attempt to offer it protection by bony ridges, but 

 every effort is made to produce an eye so placed as to catch the glint of a fish above, 

 below, ahead or astern, while the bird is in its element under water in search of food. 



I have so far been unsuccessful in finding any discernible reason for the peculiarities 

 of colour distribution to which attention has just been drawn. That at one period the 

 adults of the Emperor and the King must have been totally distinct one has every right 

 to conclude from the fact that the chick of the one is uniformly dark and brown, while 

 the chick of the other is a fantastic piebald of black and white. Yet the adults have 

 such striking similarities in their jet-black heads, their orange necks and beak plates, 

 their bluish backs and lemon-yellow breasts, that one is led to consider them close 

 relations to one another until their chickens are examined side by side. Even then 

 one is reminded that the Emperor Penguin and the King Penguin lay but one egg 

 each, and that both incubate the egg in the same way on the dorsum of the foot instead 

 of in a nest. This they do moreover in an upright position instead of squatting on 

 the egg as do other penguins. It is impossible to think that these many peculiar 

 similarities have been developed independently by birds which were once more distinct, 

 but how then can one explain the total dissimilarity that exists now in the chicks ? The 

 simplest way out of the difficulty would be to say that the white down of the Emperor's 



