434 NATURAL HISTORY. 



the thick grass of the savannahs, and is but a feeble flier, making, when 

 it rises, a whirring noise similar to but much louder than that of our own 

 grouse. 



Penguins. 



The penguins and rock-hoppers have been aptly termed the seals among 

 the birds; for they are almost as aquatic as the seals, while their wings, 

 covered with scale-like feathers, have been modified into flippers, of great, 

 use in swimming, but utterly useless as organs of flight. All dwell in the 

 southern part of the southern hemisphere. Our plate represents the best- 

 known form, the king-penguin ; but most of the specimens are figured in a. 

 position they but rarely assume on land. The head and neck should be 

 stretched straight upwards, the tip of the beak pointed towards the zenith. 

 When on the shore, they are the perfect picture of awkwardness, but in 

 the water all is changed. They swim with the utmost readiness, and go 

 long distances beneath the surface, rising now for air, and then diving 

 again. Indeed, their motion in the water may be truly called an aquatic 

 flight, for the wings are even more important than the webbed feet. Dur- 

 ing the day they are almost always in the water, except when sitting on 

 their eggs, but at night they retire to the shores. In habits all the pen- 

 guins and rock-hoppers are much alike, and the following account of a 

 rock-hoppers' rookery will answer almost equally well for all. It is by 

 Professor Moseley of the 'Challenger' expedition. 



" It is impossible to conceive the discomfort of making one's way 

 through a big rookery. You plunge into one of the lanes in the tall grass, 

 which at once shuts the surroundings from your view. You tread on a. 

 slimy, black, damp soil, composed of the birds' dung. The stench is over- 

 powering, the yelling of the birds perfectly terrifying. The nests are 

 placed so thickly that you cannot help treading on eggs and young birds 

 at almost every step. A parent bird sits on each nest, with its sharp beak 

 erect and open, ready to bite, yelling savagely caa, caa, urr, urr, its red 

 eye -learning, and its plumes at half-cock, and quivering with rage. No 

 sooner are your legs within reach than they are furiously bitten, often by 

 two or three birds at once. ... At first you try to avoid the nests, but. 

 soon find that course impossible; then, maddened almost by the pain, 

 stench, and noise, you have recourse to brutality, and the path behind you 

 is strewed with the dead and dying and bleeding. But you make miserably 

 slow progress, and. worried to death, at last resort to stampeding as far as 

 your breath will carry you." The penguins feed on the fish, crabs, and 

 molluscs which abound in the shores of the Antarctic seas. Both sexes aid 

 in incubating the eggs. 



