44 EDWARD A. WILSON. 



of the mountain in beaten tracks. One cannot but marvel at the persistence with 

 which these little birds, using their feet, bills, and flippers, laboriously climb to the 

 summit of such rugged slopes. Why, one wonders, should they ever set themselves 

 such an infinite amount of unnecessary labour when there is ample room for them to 

 nest and rear their young on the flat moraines below ? 



The observations made on this rookery at Cape Adare by the zoologists of the 

 Southern Cross ' Expedition show that but two journeys could be made to the summit 

 during the twenty-four hours ; and this is no isolated example, for on other rookeries 

 there were nests to be found fully as high and even farther from the shore. 



To return now to the actual feeding of the chickens. They have a method 

 which is altogether entertaining, a method which exemplifies in a direct and indisputable 

 manner the far-reaching law of the survival of the fittest. One may stand in the noisy 

 crowd of penguins at Cape Crozier and watch the law in being from its many-sided 

 aspects ; the cruelty, the pathos, the humour, and yet the admirable perfection of the 

 whole system being irresistibly brought home to the observer. 



The sooty- grey young ones in the third week of January were almost as big as 

 their parents, and quite as active. Of these young birds there were literally thousands, 

 and all were hungry, many very hungry. Moreover, each individual chicken acted 

 upon the supposition that every old bird as it came up from the shore was full of 

 shrimps. On this assumption the old bird had no choice but to run the gauntlet. 

 Chased incontinently up and down the rookery by the importunate infants, the fond 

 parent ran hither and thither with a keen eye open for the chicken it once had called 

 its own (fig. 38, p. 52). Driven at last to bay, it could only turn to swear and silence 

 its persecuting followers for the moment with a vicious peck, but the moment its 

 search again commenced it would be caught up and followed and worried in precisely 

 the same way by a fresh relay of young ones, all belonging to someone else. 



As we stood there and watched this race for food we were gradually possessed 

 with the idea that the chicks looked upon each adult coming up full-bellied from the 

 shore, as not a parent only, but a food supply. The parents were labouring under a 

 totally different idea, and intended either to find their own infants and feed them, or 

 else to assimilate their already partially digested catch themselves. The more robust 

 of the young thus worried an adult until, because of his importunity, he was fed. But 

 with the less robust a much more pathetic ending was the rule. A chick that had 

 fallen behind in this literal race for life, starving and weak, and getting daily weaker 

 because it could not run fast enough to insist on being fed, again and again ran off 

 pursuing with the rest. Again and again it stumbled and fell, persistently whining 

 out its hunger in a shrill and melancholy pipe, till at last the race was given up. 

 Forced thus by sheer exhaustion to stop and rest, it had no chance of getting food. 

 Each hurrying parent with its little following of hungry chicks, intent on one thing 

 only, rushed quickly by, and the starveling dropped behind to gather strength for one 

 more effort. Again it fails, a robuster bird has forced the pace, and again success is 



