396 HISTORY OF 



litit ill adapted by nature. In those places, however, where the 

 penguin has had but few visits from man, her nest is made, with the 

 most confident security, in the middle of some large plain, where 

 they are seen by thousands. In that unguarded situation, neither 

 exjjecting nor fearing a powerful enemy, they continue to sit 

 brooding ; and even when man comes among them, have at first 

 no apprehension of their danger. Some of this tribe have been 

 called by our seamen, the Boohy,* from the total insensibility 

 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 defend themselves ; but 

 they have no idea of injury from a being so very unlike their na- 

 tural opposers. The penguins, therefore, when our seamen first 

 came among them, tamely suffered themselves to he knocked on 

 the head, without even attempting an escape. They have stood 

 to be shot at in fiocks, without offering to move, in silent won- 

 der, till every one of their number has been destroyed. Their 

 attachment to their nests was still more powerful ; for the fe- 

 males tamely suflfered the men to approach and take their eggs 

 without any resistance. But the experience of a few of those 

 unfriendly visits, has long shice taught them to be more upon 

 their guard in choosing their situations ; or to leave those retreats 

 where they were so little able to oppose their invaders. 



The penguin lays but one egg ; and, in frequented 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, seve- 

 ral of this tribe, as Linnaeus assures us, are seen together. 

 There the females lay their single egg, in a common nest, and 

 git upon this, their general possession, by turns ; while one is 

 placed as a sentinel, to give warning of approaching danger. 

 The egg of the penguin, as well as of all this tribe, is very large 

 for the size of the bird, being generally found bigger than that of 

 K goose. But as there are many varieties of the penguin, and as 

 they differ in size, from that of a Muscovy duck to a swan, the 

 eggs differ in the same proportion. 



* The Booby will be fuuud described in ?. note to a former pag-e. It l)e. 

 longs to the pelican tribe, iiud not to the periguiDS. 



