HP L.^ TIE 



I. 



FAMILY SPHENISCIDiE. 



~\T7"ITH many, the figure of the Penguin stands out prominently among the earliest recollections, for 

 picture books make its form familiar to children, even before they are able to read about it. 

 The wise-looking, helpless, dandyfied birds, standing upright in their great phalanxes on the lonely, far-away 

 islands, are mixed up with the earliest impressions of most of us. The family is divided into six genera 

 in all, yet only fifteen distinct species are known ; out of this number, four are met with on the 

 Australian coast. Though not possessing the most brilliant hues, the Penguin is one of the most 

 handsomely coloured of birds, with its bold contrasts of jet black, snowy white, and blue and silvery greys. 

 It is particularly cleanly in its habits, and no speck or stain, for which it constantly surveys its feathers, 

 is allowed to remain for an instant after being observed. The Penguins are gregarious during the breeding- 

 season, when thev assemble in vast multitudes on ruffged isolated islands in the South Pacific and 

 Atlantic Oceans. As the season draws to a close and moulting sets in, the fading beauties of their 

 plumage seem to exercise a repulsive influence, and they live more apart as their splendours grow dim, 

 till, the new crop of feathers once more complete, the}' again begin to re-assemble. Any individual bird 

 not equipped in his full panoply of well-trimmed plumage is forbidden to mix in the annual gathering- 

 till every feather is in place. The habits of the birds when massed together during breeding-time offer 

 a most fertile subject of observation, and travellers have left many interesting notes of their methodical 

 ways. The little ones must be taught to swim, and when a more timid youngster has refused to take 

 to the water, the mother has often been seen to entice it artfully to a projecting ledge and push it in, 

 repeating the process till the pupil goes in of its own accord. The young are kept for ten or eleven 

 months under the care of the mother. The male bird is zealous in rendering assistance in the hatching 

 of the eggs. The appearance of a cluster of jagged, barren, rocky islands, where the Penguins are 

 congregated in myriads, is described as an amazing sight. The birds resent the landing of voyagers, 

 crowding round and pecking viciously at them. Their attacks are not dangerous, however — only annoying, 

 and what with their onslaughts, their harsh and eerie cries, and the insufferable smell of the vast beds of 

 guano, travellers are glad to leave the haunts of the Penguin after but a short visit. All the varieties 

 of this family are easily killed, hence their almost total extermination in some parts. They are as agile 

 and graceful in the water as the}' are awkward and helpless on land ; but the islands frequented by them 

 are generally in such exposed positions, that in a severe gale, thousands of the young and helpless birds, 

 especially of the smaller varieties, are frequently destroyed. 



GENUS EUDYPTULA (Bonaparte). 



rjIHE two members of this genus shown on the plate are the smallest known varieties of the entire 

 family. Both species inhabit the coast of Tasmania and the southern coast of Australia at nearly 

 all points suitable to their habits and mode of living. 



