A Ballasted Bird 401 



S^" S., and, wonder of Wonders, it fell a calm. Between 

 twelve noon and two I was at the wheel, listless and 

 cold, and gaping all around me at sea and sky, when 

 suddenly a Penguin popped up alongside, gave one 

 wide-eyed stare at the unfamiliar ship, and disappeared. 

 But he was not satisfied. Three times he came back 

 to look, and so clear was the water that I could follow 

 his every movement beneath it, note his exceeding 

 beauty and grace, and — mentally apologise to him 

 for ever having thought him ungainly or ludicrous 

 in any way. I should add that at this time we were 

 certainly about a thousand miles from the nearest 

 land, which perhaps will justify my inclusion of the 

 Penguin among the honourable company of the 

 Deep-Sea People. 



The food of the Penguin is of course fish, with 

 which those remote seas are teeming. And this 

 explains his amazing agility under water, for who 

 would seize the living fish in his native element must 

 needs move with a rapidity and a sinuous grace, to 

 which the most splendid efforts of a human athlete 

 are very, very slow and clumsy indeed. But like most 

 of the seals, and for probably the same hidden digestive 

 reasons, the Penguin thinks well to burden his belly 

 with boulders. Sir James Ross notes that in the sto- 

 mach of one of them he found ten pounds weight of 

 quartz, granite, and trap. Well, the poor thing needs, 

 no doubt at too frequently recurring times, something 

 to impart a sense of fulness and stability to the 

 stomach. For that organ is not only of huge size 

 in proportion to the build of the bird, but has, in com- 

 mon with the seals and sharks, ay, the majority of 

 the Deep-Sea People, a flood of digestive juices capable 

 of dealing almost (as a sailor would say) with scupper 

 nails. 



26 



