258 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



seem a perfect paradise after the terrible struggle and fight through the Penguin rookery, 

 which it is necessary to endure in order to reach them. 



In landing it was necessary to pass through a broad belt of water, covered with the 

 floating leaves of the wonderful seaweed already referred to, Macrocystis pyrifera, 

 termed " Kelp " by seamen, which here, as at Tristan and Nightingale Islands, forms a 

 sort of zone around the greater part of the island, and which was afterwards met with in 

 great abundance at Kerguelen Island. 



As the shore was approached, a shoal of what looked like extremely active very small 

 Porpoises or Dolphins was seen moving through the water. They showed black above 

 and white beneath, and came along in a drove of fifty or more, from the sea towards the 

 shore at a rapid pace, by a series of successive leaps out of the water and splashes into it 

 again, describing short curves in the air, taking headers out of the water and headers 

 into it. They landed on the black stony beach, and there struggled and jumped up 

 amongst the boulders, and revealed themselves as wet and dripping Penguins. It would 

 have been impossible for any one previously unacquainted with them to have believed the 

 animals to be birds, had he seen them only thus in rapid motion in the water. 



The beach was bounded along its whole stretch at the landing place by a dense growth 

 of Tussock, a stout, coarse, reed-like grass, growing in large clumps, which have 

 at their bases large masses of hard woody matter, formed of the bottom of old stems 

 and the roots. In Penguin rookeries, the grass covers wide tracts with a dense growth 

 like that of a field of standing corn, but denser and higher, the grass reaching high over 

 a man's head. The Falkland Island " Tussock " (Dactylis ccespitosa) is of a different 

 genus, but it has a similar habit. In the Tristan group there is a sort of mutual-benefit- 

 alliance between the Penguins and the Tussock. The millions of Penguins sheltering and 

 nesting amongst the grass, saturate the soil on which it grows with the strongest 

 manure, and the grass thus stimulated grows high and thick, and shelters the birds 

 from wind and rain, and enemies, such as the predatory Gulls. On the beach were to be 

 seen various groups of Penguins, coming from or going to the sea. There is only 

 one species of Penguin in the Tristan group {Eudyptes chrysocome). The birds stand about 

 a foot and a half high, and are covered, as are all Penguins, with a thick coating of closely 

 set feathers. They are slaty grey on the back and head, snow white on the whole front, 

 and from each side of the head a tuft of sulphur yellow plumes projects backwards. The 

 tufts lie close to the head when the bird is swimming or diving, but they are erected 

 when it is on shore, and then almost seem, by their varied posture, to be used in the 

 expression of emotions, such as inquisitiveness and anger. The bill of the Penguin is 

 bright red, and very strong and sharp at the point, as the legs of the various exploring 

 parties testified before the day was over ; the iris is also red, and remarkably sensitive to 

 light. When one of the birds was standing in the zoological laboratory on board the 

 ship, with one side of its head turned towards the port, and the other away from the 



