INTRODUCTION 



rookeries, such as Cape Crozier, this journey must 

 mean for them a journey of at least four hundred 

 miles by water, and an unknown but considerable 

 distance on foot over ice. 



As I am about to describe the manners and 

 customs of Adelie penguins at the Cape Adare 

 rookery, I will give a short description of that spot. 



Cape Adare is situated in lat. 71 14' S. long. 

 170 10' E., and is a neck of land jutting out from 

 the sheer and ice-bound foot-hills of South Victoria 

 Land northwards for a distance of some twenty 

 miles. 



For its whole length, the sides of this Cape 

 rise sheer out of the sea, affording no foothold 

 except at the extreme end, where a low beach 

 has been formed, nestling against the steep side of 

 the cliff which here rises almost perpendicularly to 

 a height of over 1000 feet. 



Hurricanes frequently sweep this beach, so that 

 snow never settles there for long, and as it is com- 

 posed of basaltic material freely strewn with 

 rounded pebbles, it forms a convenient nesting site, 

 and it was on this spot that I made the observations 

 set forth in the following pages. 



Viewed before the penguins' arrival in the spring, 

 and after recent winds had swept the last snowfalls 



9 



