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



into the side valleys. The instant you leave the road you are on the actual breeding 

 ground. 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 eyes gleaming and its plumes 

 at half-cock, quivering with rage. No sooner are your legs within reach than they are 

 furiously bitten, often by two or three birds at once : that is if you have not got on 

 strong leather gaiters, as on the first occasion of visiting a rookery you probably have 

 not. At first you try to avoid the nests, but soon find that impossible ; then maddened 

 almost, by the pain, stench, and noise, you have recourse to brute force. Thump, thump, 

 goes your stick, and at each blow down goes a bird. Thud, thud, is heard from the men 

 behind as they kick the birds right and left off the nests, and so you go on for a bit, 



Fig. 101. — Penguins at home. 



thump, smash, whack, and thud, " caa, caa, urr, urr," 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 the expedient of stampeding as far as your breath will 

 carry you. You put down your head and make a rush through the grass, treading 

 on old and young hap-hazard, and rushing on before they have time to bite. The air 

 is close in the rookery and the sun hot above, and out of breath, and perspiring with 

 running you come across a mass of rock fallen from the cliff above, and sticking up in the 

 ground ; this you hail as "a city of refuge." You hammer off it hurriedly half a dozen 

 Penguins who are sunning themselves there, and are on the look-out, then mounting on 

 the top take out your handkerchief to wipe away the perspiration and rest a while, to 

 see in what direction you have been going, how far you have got, and in what direction 

 you are to make the next plunge. Then when you are refreshed, you make 

 another rush, and so on. If you stand cpiite still, so long as your foot is not actually 

 on the top of a nest of eggs or young, the Penguins soon cease biting at you and 



