ADELIE PENGUIN—LEVICK. 83 
spasm seems to possess them. This procedure appears to be induced under various 
circumstances by a feeling of satisfaction. It is seen most commonly at the rookery 
during the breeding season, but also at other times and places, and may be compared 
to the crowing of a cock, except that it is exhibited by both sexes, and provokes no 
reply from the other birds. It also suggests the braying of asses. Many times when 
one of the two mates has started this procedure, I have seen the other at once walk 
up to it and emit a low, soothine sound, which at once has caused it to relax its effort 
‘and return to the normal state. Called by Dr. Wilson the “ ecstatic” attitude, I see 
also that it has been named by the members of the French Antarctic expedition, 
“ Brayant”” and ‘“ Chant de satisfaction.” 
At the Zoological Society’s Gardens, in Regent's Park, was a male King Penguin 
which performed the same sort of antic when its keeper stroked its neck. This bird 
accompanied the exhibition with a sort of singing note, far more musical than that of 
the Adéle. The Black-footed. Penguins, however, never do it, even when they are 
breeding. 
Out on the sea-ice, far from their rookeries, | have seen Adélies seized by this 
ecstasy, as well as in the neighbourhood of their nests, while both cocks and hens not 
uncommonly rise from their recumbent position on the eggs, during the incubating 
period, to assume the attitude, impelled by some impulse for which it is difficult to 
find a meaning. 
