62 “TERRA NOVA” EXPEDITION. 
for wonder how they can lift and carry them. As a rule, fairly large stones are chosen, 
their comparative sizes being well shown in some of the photographs. 
In selecting sites for their nests, the penguins at Cape Adare have shown a very 
remarkable instinct. 
The beach on which is the rookery is raised into a series of undulations and knolls, 
and some of the lower lying ground is covered by little lakes of thaw water, rendered 
slimy and muddy by the guano that is blown into it by the frequent gales. 
Rising from one of these lakes is a big knoll that appears to be in every way 
suitable for nesting. When the birds arrive at the rookery, and for the first half of the 
breeding season, the water of the lakes is frozen hard, and like most of the solid ground 
is covered by a thin layer of wind-blown snow, so that the surface of the ice is scarcely 
to be distinguished from the land, and the island knoll in question is perfectly accessible. 
Yet not a nest is to be seen on it, nor any sign of an attempt having been made in 
past years to build one. 
It is evident from this that the penguins realise that in some six weeks’ time they 
will only be able to reach the spot by wading through the muddy water. They not only 
realise that there will be water where the solid ice now is, but that it will be slimy, and 
make them in a mess, and accordingly the island is taboo. It is not that they object 
to fresh water, as in other places they are frequently to be seen wading through clean 
fresh-water pools. 
Not far from the above-mentioned islands there is another mound rising from the 
lake, but connected with the mainland by a narrow pathway of stones rising Just above 
the water. This mound is covered with nests. While the lake is frozen they approach 
it across the ice ; later, when this thaws, they have the narrow path by which to reach 
their nests without covering themselves with mud. 
The barren island was a very distinet feature of the rookery when the available 
ground was inconveniently crowded with nests. 
Where selection has brought about such remarkable uniformity as is to be seen in 
the whole species, individual traits of character are hardly to be expected in any great 
degree, but some differences exist nevertheless. 
The sizes of the stones selected for nests by different birds have already been 
commented on. Also, some of them prefer to build their nests at a great height, 
whilst others prefer the lower ground. This is evident, as both high and low sites are 
chosen when there is still ample room on the flat beach as well as up the cliff of Cape 
Adare, to a height of 1,000 feet ; yet in order to get at many of the nests up the cliff, 
their occupants have to make frequent journeys involving a difficult and arduous climb 
to the top of the cliff, and then a walk across a precipitous snow slope hanging over the 
brink of a clear drop of many hundreds of feet on to the ice below. 
Again. some have less alertness and general force of character than others, a 
difference evidenced in a striking manner in some of the little colonies. 
Nests are seen which are incessantly losing stones from their walls owing to the 
