4 
ADELIE PENGUIN—LEVICK. 79 
and we worked for many hours rescuing the unhappy birds that had been buried alive. 
The mass of rocks and rubble that fell was followed by an avalanche of snow, and as 
we worked in this, we saw here a flipper, and there a leg, just projecting from under 
the snow, and waving disconsolately from time to time as if appealing for assistance. 
We dug out some birds who had been buried for hours, yet were still alive and 
uninjured ; but those which had been struck by rocks were worse off, and hundreds 
crawled about the rookery for days after in a terribly injured condition, some of them 
literally having been flayed alive. 
During a snowstorm the birds sit tight on their nests, and in some places are 
completely covered up by a drift. As a rule, the bird on the nest kept a space open 
above it by holding its head well up, but sometimes it was quite buried. As air diffuses 
well through snow, death never takes place by suffocation, and the bird can live for 
weeks beneath a drift, sitting on its nest in a little chamber thawed by its own warmth 
in the snow. As a rule, a few hours only elapse before the snow settles down and 
abates sufficiently to expose the nest once more, but sometimes a breeze springs up 
which is not strong enough to blow the snow away, but simply hardens the surface of 
the drift into a crust, which lasts many weeks, and the bird is imprisoned, and after 
this little black dots are seen about the ground, which are the heads of penguins 
thrust through little breathing-holes that they have kept open. One of my photographs 
showed an Adélie engaged in an altercation with its mate, who was very angry, and 
aimed savage pecks at the head of the imprisoned one each time it was protruded. 
8.—RATE OF GROWTH AND CARE OF YOUNG. 
(Pls. XIX-XXI.) 
All that I have said hitherto, in describing the way in which the parents foster 
and feed their young, applies only to the earlier part of the season, when the offspring 
are weak and comparatively helpless. The chicks, however, grow at a great rate, eating 
with avidity all the food that is brought them. On weighing a chick at intervals I 
obtained this astonishing result :— 
Ounces. 
ihe egg. ; : : ‘ . : : . 4°56 
The chick when hatched 3°00 
Five days old . 13°00 
Six a Las 
Eight _,, BAT 5 
Nine ,, 28°50 
Eleven ., BY OS 
Twelve ., Biante 
When the chicks are about a fortnight old an entire change takes place in the 
social arrangements of the colony, and in place of the individual care bestowed by 
M 
