INTRODUCTION 



walking all round them, and often staying to doze by 

 them for hours. Some of them, indeed, seemed to 

 enjoy our companionship. When you pass on the 

 sea-ice anywhere near a party of penguins, these 

 generally come up to look at you, and we had great 

 trouble to keep them away from the sledge dogs 

 when these were tethered in rows near the hut at 

 Cape Evans. The dogs killed large numbers of 

 them in consequence, in spite of all we could do to 

 prevent this. 



The Adelies, as will be seen in these pages, are 

 extremely brave, and though panic occasionally 

 overtakes them, I have seen a bird return time after 

 time to attack a seaman who was brutally sending 

 it flying by kicks from his sea-boot, before I arrived 

 to interfere. An exact description of the plumage 

 of the Adelie penguins will be found in the Appendix, 

 as it is more especially of their habits that I intend 

 to treat in this work. 



Before describing these, and with a view to making 

 them more intelligible to the general reader, I will 

 proceed to a short explanation. 



The Adelie penguins spend their summer and 

 bring forth their young in the far South. Nesting 

 on the shores of the Antarctic continent, and on the 

 islands of the Antarctic seas, they are always close 

 6 



