WATER FOWL. 



tinue to sit brooding ; and even when man comes 

 among them, have at first no apprehension of 

 their danger. Some of this tribe have been call- 

 ed, by our seamen, the Booby, from the total in- 

 sensibility which they show when they are sought 

 to their destruction. But it is not considered 

 that these birds have never been taught to know 

 the dangers of a human enemy : it is against the 

 fox or the vulture that they have learned to de- 

 fend themselves ; but they have no idea of in- 

 jury from a being so very unlike their natural op- 

 posers. The penguins, therefore, when our sea- 

 men first came among them, tamely suffered 

 themselves to be knocked on the head, without 

 even attempting an escape. They have stood to 

 be shot at in flocks, without offering to move, in 

 silent wonder, till every one of their number has 

 been destroyed. Their attachment to their nests 

 was still more powerful ; for the females tamely 

 suffered the men to approach and take their eggs 

 without any resistance. But the experience of a 

 few of those unfriendly visits, has long since 

 taught them to be more upon their guard in 

 choosing their situations, or to leave those re- 

 treats where they were so little able to oppose 

 their invaders. 



The penguin lays but one egg ; and, in fre- 

 quented shores, is found to burrow like a rabbit : 

 sometimes three or four take possession of one 

 hole, and hatch their young together. In the 

 holes of the rocks where nature has made them 

 a retreat, several of this tribe, as Linnaeus assures 

 us, are seen together. There the females lay 



