EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 239 



provided for the purpose. This, when ' tried' or boiled down, furnishes 

 the oil. The most valuable part of the creature is, however, the strainer 

 in its cheeks and throat. This is the whalebone, which nowadays 

 fetches about thirty shillings a pound. At Kalk Bay the folk say that 

 the Whale referred to was worth about £600. It is 45 ft. in length, 

 and the flukes of the tail measured 15 ft. across. 



In the ' Wide World Magazine' for May, Mr. C. E. Borchgrevinck 

 contributes an article on " Penguins and their Ways." In our previous 

 volume (p. 192) we gave a notice, with some extracts, of Mr. Borch- 

 grevinck's volume, 'First on the Antarctic Continent,' and the present 

 article supplements the Penguin narrative. 



"When we arrived at Victoria Land in the ' Southern Cross,' in 

 February, 1899, only a few Penguins were left, most having gone 

 northwards. We had met them in shoals in the open water, where 

 they jumped about like so many Porpoises round our vessel. Only 

 some stragglers were left on the triangular peninsula at Cape Adare. 

 Not many days after we had landed the last Penguin dived into the 

 sea, and left us to face the stern Antarctic winter alone. Until that 

 memorable Antarctic spring day came, the 14th of October, 1899, no 

 Penguins were to be seen. On that date one lonely old Penguin 

 waddled slowly towards our camp just as the zoologist of the expedition* 

 was dying. That first poor Penguin was also destined to meet death 

 on the date of its arrival, for, at the wish of the dying man in the hut, 

 we killed it, as he wanted to examine it. 



" Next day several more Penguins arrived, although there was no 

 open water near the coast. They had evidently walked great distances. 

 Soon a continual stream of Penguins walked towards us from over the 

 immense white expanse ; they looked for all the world like so many 

 small people rolling from one side to another, with their flippers out- 

 stretched like short arms to maintain their equilibrium. They were 

 not in the least frightened of us. Perchance they took us for a new 

 kind of Penguin ! Certain it is that they came up to us, walked round 

 about us, and evidently discussed us — in short, examined us thoroughly 

 — before they again started off on the march towards their breeding- 

 places. It was curious to see how they stuck to their Indian-file 

 method of progression, one always travelling in the step of the pre- 

 ceding one, until long tracks in the snow, winding in and out between 

 the ice-blocks, were to be seen towards Cape Adare. 



* Nikolai Hanson. 



