ADELIE PENGUIN—LEVICK. 35 
6d 
foot or so clear of the water and on dry ground, but nevertheless its inmates quite 
realised the emergency that threatened them, and that it must be provided against, 
and for hours the cock passed to and fro, wading across the little lake to the far 
side, from which he got his stones. 
This scene is shown in Pl. VII. In the right hand corner of the picture the 
cock is seen in the act of delivermg another stone to the hen, who is waiting to 
receive it, whilst some of the nests are seen actually surrounded by water. 
Here I quote from my notes :— 
“Nov. 10th. This evening I saw a hen penguin trying to sit on a nest with 
two eggs. The nest had no stones, as they had all been stolen by neighbours, and 
as it was scooped deeply in the ground, and in a slush of melting snow, the eggs 
were nearly covered with water. The poor hen stood in this, and kept trying to sit 
on the eggs, but each time she did so, sat in the water and had to get up again. 
She was shivering with cold and all bedraggled. I took the two eggs out of the 
nest, and Browning and I collected a heap of stones (partly from her richer neighbours !) 
and built the nest well up above the water. Then I replaced the eggs, and the hen at 
once gladly sat on them, put them in position, and was busily engaged in arranging 
the new stones around her when we left.” 
When one egg has been laid the hen still sits on the nest, as the egg would 
be frozen if it were left uncovered, besides which skua gulls are always ready to 
pounce on any that lie exposed, and it is not until the second egg is laid that she 
goes to feed, and the cock takes his turn on the nest for the first time. 
As nearly as I could ascertain, pairing began on October 16th or 17th, and we 
found the first egg on November 3rd. 
In order to determine the period between the laying of the two eggs, | numbered 
seven nests with wooden pegs, writing on the pegs the date on which each egg was 
laid, and the following was the result obtained :— 
Date of appearance Date of appearance 
of first egg. of second egg. Interval. 
No. 1 nest. . . November 14th = Only 1 laid. 
No. 2 nest. . . November 13th November 16th 3 days. 
No. 3 nest. . . November 14th November 17th 3 days. 
INoy4enéshs = = 
No. 5 nest. . . November 12th November 16th 4 days. 
No. 6 nest. . . November 8th November 12th 4 days. 
No. 7 nest. . . November 24th — Only 1 laid. 
the average interval in the four cases where two eggs were laid being 3°5 days. 
The only notes I have on the lapse of time between the laying of the egg and the 
hatching of the chick are that the first chick appeared in No. 5 nest on December 19th 
K 2 
