A PECULIAR PEOPLE 15 
leaping out of the water, and the game of “ touch 
last” on the sea-ice. A favorite ploy was to 
board an ice-floe till it would hold no more, and get 
carried by the tide to the lower end of the rookery, 
where every bird would suddenly jump off and swim 
back against the stream to catch a fresh floe and 
get another ride down. To find the time for all this 
fun without leaving the chicks to perish, a strange 
device has been evolved. The parents “pool their 
offspring” in groups which are left in charge of 
a few conscientious persons (there is great indi- 
viduality among the members of the penguinery) 
who ward off the skuas and keep, or try to keep, 
the chicks from straying. The holidaying parents 
bring food at intervals, when their conscience smites 
them—and they remain faithful to their own 
créches. On the whole, the Adélie’s lot appears to 
be a happy one, and we read with pleasure of the 
“ecstatic” attitude which they assume, and the 
weird “chant de satisfaction” which they utter 
when all is well with their world. 
One other picture is surely unique in the annals 
of natural history. It was a sort of drilling on 
the ice, a congregating of thousands, and the 
execution of ordered movements for hours on end. 
Dr. Levick’s interpretation is probably correct, that 
although what he saw was not directly connected 
with migration, it may represent an echo of a by- 
gone habit of massing together in large numbers 
before the autumnal journey northwards. The 
journey is, of course, still undertaken, but little 
