PLATE XVI.- THE ADELIE PENGUIN. 



FIG. 1. From a photograph by L. C. BERNACCHI (Be. 44, }-plate), Jan. 9, 1902 ; 

 taken at the Cape Adare "rookery." 



FIG. 2. From a photograph by R. W. SKELTON (Sk. 53, -plate), Jan. 9, 1902; 

 taken at Cape Adare. 



Young Ade'lie Penguins are clothed during the first four weeks of their 

 existence after hatching in a complete covering of sooty-black down. 



As they increase in size, so they become more ravenous for food, and this 

 leads them to expose themselves to the attacks of Skua Gulls, which hover round, 

 and to these they often fall an easy prey. 



The old birds have, therefore, realised that some safety can be assured by 

 grouping the chicks together as in Fig. 2. Round the group they station guards, 

 whilst others go to sea for " shrimps." On their return, so worried are they by 

 the hungry chickens that they feed them promiscuously simply to be rid of them, 

 and then take a turn at nursing while the former nurses go to sea. 



A month after hatching, the young birds begin to shed their down and 

 appear in the first year's plumage of bluish-black feathers, with white front and 

 throat, instead of the black throat of the adult, which appears only in the second 

 year. Soon after this change the young bird is coaxed or driven by hunger to 

 enter water for the first time, there to catch the Crustaceans which are to support 

 its life. 



See Nat. Hist. Rep., vol. ii., Aves, p. 51. 



