II 
A PECULIAR PEOPLE 
HE story goes that a lady seeing penguins for: 
the first time, and that, as it happened, in 
the sea-lions’ inclosure at the Zoo, remarked that 
it was strange that the young seals were so like 
birds. She might well be excused for an error 
that showed an unprejudiced mind, for quainter 
creatures than penguins it would be hard to 
imagine. Their striking attitudes, now upright 
like sentinels and again groveling on the ice like 
their reptilian ancestors; their versatility in move- 
ment, gamboling like porpoises, swimming like 
ducks, diving with the help of their flippers to’ 
a depth of ten fathoms, toddling on the ice like top- 
heavy babies, and tobogganing in a manner all their 
own; their daring surrender of wings in exchange 
for flippers; their way of molting their feathers 
in great patches; and a score of other remarkable 
features mark them out among birds as a very 
peculiar people. But it is when we inquire into 
their habits that their most striking peculiarities 
are discovered, and here we are especially indebted 
to Staff-Surgeon Murray Levick, R.N., member of 
the “Terra Nova” (1910) Antarctic Expedition, 
who has got nearer the heart of the penguin—of the 
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