ADELIE PENGUIN—LEVICK. 75 
none of these appeared to take the least notice of him, and went on with their play 
as if nothing had happened. 
In distinct contrast to this is their behaviour in the presence of the Sea-leopard. 
Should one of these appear amongst them, as we often saw, they sped off in the 
utmost terror, never pausing till they had put some hundreds of yards between 
them and their arch-enemy. The Sea-leopards congregate in the sea in the 
neighbourhood of the rookeries during the breeding-season, and the number of 
Adélies they kill and eat is almost incredible. 
On cutting open one of these seals which I had shot, I found its stomach 
distended by the carcases of no fewer than eighteen penguins in different stages of 
digestion, whilst its intestines were stufted with the feathers of many more. 
As one became familiar with the fish-like activity of the Adélies in the water, 
and compared this with the clumsier movements of the huge Killers, it became 
evident that the birds had a great advantage over the whales, and could avoid 
these as easily as a terrier can avoid a cow. 
The Sea-leopards, on the other. hand, proved actually to be faster than the 
penguins. Their favourite practice was to lie motionless beneath the overhanging 
ledges of the ice-foot, their heads only above water, not a ripple betraying their 
presence to the penguins gathered on the ledge above them. When these dived 
into the water they came almost on the top of their enemy, which with a rush 
and a snap of its huge jaws would seize one of them in a moment. I was very 
fortunate in securing the photograph reproduced in Pl. XVIII, which depicts this scene 
very finely. The penguins are hesitating on the ledge above the Sea-leopard. 
They cannot see him, but very well know of the danger which so often meets 
them when they enter the water, and the tricks they all play on one another in 
the attempt of each to get one of his neighbours to be the first to go into the 
water are fully explained. The only possible way in which they can make their 
enemy betray himself is to push one of their number in, and in this endeavour they 
employ every artifice. 
When a party, actually in the water, is attacked by a Sea-leopard, they 
“porpoise” off in a mad panic, not in a clump, but spreading themselves out in a 
fan-shaped formation as they go, and continue their flight until, as I have said, a 
safe distance is interposed between them and their pursuer. Frequently, however, 
one is overtaken by the seal, showing that the latter swims the faster, When 
overtaken the bird abandons the attempt to get away, and adopts different tactics, 
invariably swimming round and round in a circle of some dozen yards diameter, 
and whilst he can keep this up, his ability to turn quicker than his enemy saves 
him, but in the end he becomes exhausted, his efforts feebler and feebler, until the 
great jaws of the Sea-leopard appear above the water, and the penguin is no more. 
When they are hungry, the Sea-leopards swallow the penguins whole, feathers and 
all, but when they are well fed they skin them first. This they do by seizing the 
