THE ADELIE PENGUIN. 41 
and nails, and blood stains in their tracks show th : 
, at sometimes th : 
the process (fig. 34, p. 46 ). ey must suffer in 
We saw no marked scratching in the rock surface such as that which has been 
observed in the Falkland Islands. Probably if one hunted in suitable places in the 
Antarctic one might find them, for with vesicular volcanic rocks the partitions between 
the vesicles would easily be broken down by the birds’ claws, always in a manner which 
would assist the subsequent action of water, and the two together would eventually 
produce deep grooves. 
At Cape Adare, however, where some of the birds nest at a height of nearly 
1,000 feet, their pathways are peculiar for another reason. They choose, to begin with, 
the gulleys and “ chimneys ” which are more or less filled with snow drift, and the 
constant procession of birds up and down these gulleys in the steep mountain side 
gradually wears away a number of deep cuttings in the hard snow which intersect one 
another in every direction, and leave lozenge-shaped pinnacles standing in between. 
The quaint aspect given to the thoroughfare in this way is seen in the photo reproduced 
(fig. 31, p. 42). 
The pace at which these birds can travel in the water rivals that of many fish ; 
on land they are of course not so fast, though their pace when toboganning on 
their stomachs is about as quick as a man can run on ice and snow, and a great deal 
faster than the birds can travel on their feet. 
The question as to whether penguins have in bygone days had the power of 
flight is still an open one, and I will not attempt to discuss here what is more 
satisfactorily discussed in another chapter dealing with anatomical details that 
bear upon the matter of their origin. But, having a strong belief in the permanence 
of instinctive efforts and habits, even long after their need or their usefulness has 
disappeared, and having seen a penguin with a strong desire to follow a Skua gull 
which was flying overhead, crouch down as if to spring and suddenly use its wings as 
if to rise in flight, while its eyes followed the flight of the Skua, I was so assured of its 
wish to fly that I could half believe it must once have had the power. 
There is moreover the quaint habit in this bird, as well as in the Emperor and 
the King, and possibly in others too, of sleeping in an upright position with the bill 
tucked in behind the flipper. This, as I have more fully explained in the case of the 
Emperor Penguin, is also a habit or posture in which the bird continues to indulge, 
but which has no raison d’étre now that the wing is so sparsely feathered. This 
bird, as is the case with other penguins, sleeps at times on its breast with the head 
drawn in upon the neck. 
Experiments, in themselves cruel, and useless from a scientific point of view, 
have been made from time to time with a view to settling the number of minutes 
that a penguin can remain under water and yet live. Undoubtedly the penguin 
could, if put to it by finding itself under a very extensive sheet of ice, remain 
and swim under water for a good deal longer than a minute; but in the ordinary 
