64 «TERRA NOVA” EXPEDITION. 
getting more used to the process as time went on, became more exasperated with 
me each time I went to her nest, though I was very gentle indeed, both with her 
and the chick, and as she saw me approach, when I was still some way oft, would 
rise from the nest and ruffle her feathers, trembling with indignation, and making 
a great noise. I always gave her a fur mit to peck at while I temporarily borrowed 
her chick. 
The instinct which causes a bird to procure food and bring it to the nest for 
its offspring is, as we know, common to all species, this duty being equally shared 
by both cock and hen, im the case of the Adélie Penguin, from the time when the 
chicks first appear. 
On one occasion, however, I noticed an unusual trait of character on the part 
of a cock. As the season advanced and the sun’s altitude increased, almost all the 
snow which had covered the rookery during the early spring disappeared owing to 
thawing and ablation, leaving the ground bare and dry. 
Whilst the snow remained the birds, as they sat on their eggs, used to quench 
their thirst by gobbling that which lay within reach. Afterwards, however, they 
seemed to suffer greatly for want of water, and were to be seen panting with their 
beaks open and tongues exposed. Those who were not engaged in incubating used 
to journey frequently to the various drifts that still remaimed, gobbling great 
quantities of snow ; one drift in particular, which had formed in the lee of our hut, 
being visited by crowds who came incessantly to quench their thirst. 
One day a cock was seen to pick up a lump of snow in his beak and carry it 
a considerable distance to his mate as she sat on the nest. He deposited it on the 
ground in front of her, and she ate it at once. When I mentioned this to 
Mr. Priestley, he told me that when he was at Cape Royds with Sir Ernest 
Shackleton’s Expedition, he had seen the same thing occur. As this was seen only 
once at Cape Adare, it is evidently a very rare occurrence, and I mention it here as 
a characteristic development possessed by only a few individuals. The cock, when 
away from his mate, evidently had in his mind the fact of his hen being thirsty 
and unable to get snow as he could. 
Owing to our having had several snowfalls without wind, and to the action of 
the sun’s rays falling through that clear atmosphere on to the black rock, there were 
in some places masses of slush and then actual floods as the thaw water trickled 
down into the hollows. Some of the penguins having made their nests in these low- 
lying positions, these were threatened with destruction by the floods (Pl. VII). Here 
the occupants were to be seen doing everything they could to avert this calamity, 
and from each nest the cock worked busily, making journey after journey in quest 
of stones, with which the hen built the little castle higher and higher, and so kept 
the eggs above water, so that some of the pools were dotted with little islands on 
which the hens sat. 
[ noticed one nest in particular, by the side of a pool, which still remained a 
