76 “TERRA NOVA” EXPEDITION. 
bird by the feathers and shaking it from side to side till a large portion of the skin 
comes away, when they drop this, take a fresh hold, and tear another piece off, and 
so on till, at any rate, the greater part of the skin and feathers is removed from 
the body. 
It is evident that sometimes a penguin escapes, as occasionally we saw them 
making their way along the ice-foot, terribly injured, and these generally had the 
skin of the whole of their breasts peeled away and hanging from them like an apron, 
and their breast-muscles were bared and bleeding. 
Greatly as they are terrified of the Sea-leopard in the water, they probably pay 
little attention to him when he is on the ice, as it is very common to see them 
walking about on a floe in close proximity to Weddell Seals, and it is hardly to be 
expected that they would distinguish the two species without close mspection. On 
one occasion, too, we shot two Sea-leopards on the same floe, and whilst I was skinning 
one, and the dead body of the other lay in a life-like position near by, a large crowd 
of penguins landed on the floe, and with their usual curiosity came right up to see 
what was going on, showing not the least fear of the enormous carcases of their 
enemies, one of which measured eleven feet in length. 
6.—NESTING ON CLIFFS. 
Hitherto I have made only passing remarks on the fact that the penguins built 
their nests far up the precipitous side of Cape Adare, but now I am going into this 
matter at some length, as so much has been said on the subject by other authors. 
The cliff up which they build rises almost perpendicularly along the eastern side 
of the rookery, but is a good deal broken in places, affording foothold to the birds 
who have climbed to all its accessible parts, making their nests on ledges and in 
niches of the rock, whilst several colonies of nests have been made on the flat ground 
at the top. 
There is one colony at the very summit, whose inhabitants can only reach it 
by a long and trying climb to the top, and then a walk of several hundred yards 
across a steep snow-slope hanging over the very brink of a sheer drop of 700 feet 
into the sea. 
During the whole of the time when they are rearmg their young, these moun- 
taineers must make several journeys during each twenty-four hours, to carry their 
enormous bellyfuls of Huphausia all the way from the sea to their young on the 
nests—a weary climb for their little legs and bulky bodies, each upward journey taking 
them some two hours of strenuous climbing. The greater number who had undertaken 
this did’ so at a time when there were ample spaces unoccupied in the most eligible 
parts of the rookery. 
There is evidence to show that Adéhe Penguins have in them a strong inclination 
to climb heights. Already I have mentioned that large masses of ice have heen 
