342 THE UNIVEKSE. 



make a complete carnage of them. The well-sustained 

 noise and firing do not in the least interrupt the sleep of 

 these harassed travellers. The victims fall; the women 

 and children pick them up, or even kill with sticks those 

 pigeons Avhich have perched within their reach. The yield 

 is so abundant, that, not being able to consume in the 

 locality all the birds which are killed, they are often 

 obliged to salt and pack them in barrels, so that they may 

 be sent to a distance. 



The cold of winter drives most animals from the Polar 

 regions and compels them to make their way to countries 

 more favoured by the sun. The penguins of the Cape 

 alone seem to evade this universal law. These thorough 

 bird-fish, being intrepid swimmers, are most at home in 

 the midst of the roaring waves. They only haimt the 

 shores of Africa in order to scoop out their nests, hatch 

 their eggs, and rear their young. Then, so soon as the 

 young family has become sufficiently robust to support the 

 fatigues of the journey, all these palmipedes, mysteriously 

 obeying an instinct of which the Creator alone knows the 

 aim, suddenly disappear from the African shores, and seek 

 during six months of winter the frightful regions of the 

 south pole, condemned to incessant struggles amid tem- 

 pests and ice. But at the return of spring the penguins 

 reapi^ear in numerous troops, and encumber anew the 

 banks now smiling with verdure, grouping themselves in 

 long processions, seemingly occupied only in revelling in 

 litrht and love. 



In contrast to these pictures of the Avandering life of 

 certain Ijirds, may lie placed those in which, notwithstand- 

 ing the strength of their Avings, these tenants of the air 

 live almost entirely at home, only flitting round the envi- 

 rons of the site which nourishes them. Whilst in their 



