PENGUINS. 



549 



Habits. 



line through the eye. Humboldt's penguin has the white line running just above 

 the eye, and no white area below the same. 



Penguins, writes a recent observer, are the strangest creatures 

 ever seen ; presenting a most curious appearance, both when strutting 

 about with their padded feet over the snow, or when gliding on their breasts down 

 a slope, toboggan-fashion. When a visitor lands upon the Antarctic ice, the 

 emperor-penguins approach 

 him fearlessly with their 

 duck-like cry; a proceed- 

 ing which too often leads 

 to their destruction. Their 

 tenacity of life is, however, 

 marvellous, exceeding even 

 that of the proverbial cat ; 

 the writer just quoted 

 stating that he has known 

 an emperor-penguin to live 

 after its skull has been 

 hopelessly smashed in. All 

 the species are gregarious, 

 frequently assembling in 

 tens of thousands; and 

 when on the land during 

 the breeding-season are in 

 the habit of ranging them- 

 selves in long lines on the 

 ledges of the rocks or ice, 

 thus simulating the appear- -f/^u j 

 aiice of soldiers, when seen 

 from a distance. Although 

 the king -penguins in our 

 coloured Plate are repre- 

 sented with the beaks 

 extended horizontally, this 

 position, according to 

 Moseley, is incorrect, the birds really standing with the head and neck stretched 

 vertically upwards. The food of penguins consists exclusively of fish, which the 

 birds capture beneath the surface by their agility in swimming and diving, when 

 the paddle -like wings are used as the chief instruments of progression. So 

 thoroughly, indeed, are they at home in the water, that they are apt to be taken 

 for dolphins rather than birds, as is testified by Moseley, who writes that on first 

 approaching the shore of Kerguelen Land he was astonished at seeing what 

 appeared to be a shoal of small porpoises or dolphins. "I could not imagine," 

 he continues, " what the things could be, unless they were indeed some marvel- 

 lously small cetaceans: they showed black above and white beneath, and came 

 along in a shoal of fifty or more, from seawards towards the shore at a rapid 



\.\\\-Vt. 



HUMBOLDT'S PENGUIN. 

 (From Bartlett, Proc. Zool. Soc., 1879.) 



