AND OTHER BIRDS 65 



into a sort of double chancery, the Penguin 

 holding it in his beak whilst administering a 

 furiously rapid beating with both flippers, 

 action realising in full degree my conception of 

 what is termed in old-fashioned children's 

 literature, "a sound flogging." Only have I 

 seen equal rapidity of admonishment when, from 

 a doorway in a crowded street, an over- worked 

 mother of many seizes a small offender, pins 

 him with one dexterous twist to her maternal 

 gremium, in a fury spanks him standing, and 

 rushes back to her over-boiling pot. 



The action of the little Penguin displays just 

 the same furious haste. It is thinking of its 

 eggs and annoyed at the distraction, and really 

 the performance so resembled a human smack- 

 ing administered expeclitiously that I seemed 

 to hear the cry and see the wriggling escape 

 of the victim and the rubbing of the afflicted 

 part. The noise of these encounters and the 

 furious snarling of the spit-lire Penguin was 

 altogether too much for Banjo's equanimity. 

 The field naturalist was lost in him. Dancing 

 on his taut rope like an heraldic lion he roared 

 his mingled feelings out, joy at the din of battle 

 bray, and deep disgust at inability to help. 



