A Quaint Sea-Citizen 397 



to leeward that fateil down-draught from the spanker 

 caught him, and whirled him, a dishevelled heap of 

 feathers, into the foaming sea sweeping past, and he 

 was gone. I felt as if I had been watching the painful 

 fighting for Ufe of a dear friend, and I was scarcely 

 comforted, when, on going into the gloomy forecastle 

 at eight bells, I foimd a fluffy-feathered goat-sucker 

 perched on the edge of my bunk, who opened the wide 

 gape of his mouth at me, as I tenderly took him, 

 in voiceless supphcation to spare his feeble hfe. Need 

 I say that his request was granted ? I fed him on 

 cockroaches (we had plenty of those), and on entering 

 Cavite Bay I let him go, feeling sure he would soon 

 find a home. 



But this is a digression hardly warranted by the 

 subject. It is very necessary on account of space to 

 pass on to the quaintest of all the feathered Deep-Sea 

 People really entitled to the name, although they are 

 never found at any great distance (as sailors count 

 distance) from the shore or islands of ice. I allude 

 to the Penguins. Their nearest counterparts in northern 

 seas are the auks ; but the latter are able to fly, the 

 Penguin is not. It is really a sort of compromise, 

 to all appearance, between a seal and a bird, and but 

 for the fact that the Creator has planted it in the 

 most lonely and inhospitable portion of the roimd 

 world, would certainly long ago have been exter- 

 minated. This sad fate has befallen the great auk, 

 whose eggs coming now and then into auction-rooms 

 command such fabulous prices. It unfortunately 

 inhabited places comparatively easy of access, and 

 consequently, though it was of httle value commercially 

 and of none at all as food, it very soon became extinct 

 when rapacious man extended his sway to the fringe 

 of the Arctic Ocean. 



