FLORA AND FAUNA 



direct from the gullet. The growth is rapid, for it 

 weighs about three ounces when hatched, twenty-five 

 ounces in eight days, and forty-two ounces in twelve 

 days. The big chicks are herded in a clump and 

 guarded by a few old birds, while all the rest go out 

 collecting shrimps to feed the clump. The young learn 

 to swim as soon as their plumage is acquired, and then 

 the old birds give up feeding them. On March 12th all 

 had left Cape Adare for their winter quarters on the 

 ice pack. 



Cherry-Garrard has given us a pen picture of sur- 

 vival among the Adelie penguins. I quote a paragraph. 



The life of the Adelie penguin is one of the most un- 

 christian and successful in the world. The penguin which 

 went in for being a true believer would never stand the 

 ghost of a chance. Watch them go to bathe. Some fifty 

 or sixty agitated birds are gathered upon the ice- foot, 

 peering over the edge, telling one another how nice it 

 will be, and what a good dinner they are going to have. 

 But this is all swank : they are really worried by a horrid 

 suspicion that a sea leopard is waiting to eat the first to 

 dive. The really noble bird according to our theories 

 would say, "I will go first and if I am killed I shall at any 

 rate have died unselfishly, sacrificing my life for my com- 

 panions," and in time all the most noble birds would be 

 dead. What they really do is to try and persuade a com- 

 panion of weaker mind to plunge ; failing this they hastily 

 pass a conscription act and push him over. And then — 

 bang, helter-skelter in go all the rest. 



217 



