50 THE PENGUIN AND ALBATROSS. [1822. 



never frozen ; and the ice on the lakes is seldom sufficiently strong to 

 sustain the weight of a man. There are numerous excellent and 

 commodious harbours, and fresh water, of a good quality, in any 

 quantities desired. Wood, however, cannot be obtained at any of 

 them, except it be drift wood. Each of the islands abounds with wild 

 horses, cattle, hogs, foxes, rabbits, geese, teal, ducks, rooks, nellies, 

 albatross, mollymois, petrel, penguins, and shags ; besides a variety 

 of land birds. Some fine sea-elephants, together with fur and hair- 

 seal, are found on the shores, and a variety of scale-fish may be taken 

 from the waters. 



There is a tall grass grows here, and tussacks, or flag-grass, brush- 

 wood, and shrubs, some of which bear berries of a pleasant acid 

 flavour ; also celery, cresses, sorrel, and a plant which some call the 

 tea-plant, as it makes an excellent beverage of a similar flavour. 

 There is another vegetable called sappinette, or the varnish plant ; it 

 has the appearance of a green hillock, rising about three feet above 

 the surface of the ground, and there exudes from it a resinous sub- 

 stance, which in flavour and odour resembles gum-ammoniac. 



The feathered tribes are very numerous on these lonely isles of the 

 southern hemisphere, both in the South Seas and in the South Pacific 

 Ocean. Of penguins there are four kinds which resort to the Falkland 

 Islands ; viz. the king penguin, the macaroni, the jackass, and the rook- 

 ery. The first of these is much larger than a goose ; the other three 

 are smaller, differing in appearance in several particulars. They all walk 

 upright, as their legs project from their bodies in the same direction 

 with their tails ; and when fifty or more of them are moving in file, 

 they appear at a distance like a company of juvenile soldiers. They 

 carry their heads high, with their wings drooping like two arms. As 

 the feathers on the breast are delicately white, with a line of black 

 running across the crop, they have been aptly compared, when seen 

 at a little distance, to a company of children with white aprons tied 

 round their waists with black strings. This feathered animal may be 

 said to combine the qualities of men, fishes, and fowls : upright like 

 the first ; their wings and feet acting the part of fins, like the second ; 

 and furnished with bills and feathers, like the third. Their gait on 

 land, however, is very awkward ; more so than that of a jack-tar just 

 landed from a long voyage ; their legs not being much better adapted 

 for walking than their wings are for flying. 



The next most remarkable bird to be found on these shores is the 

 penguin's intimate associate and most particular friend, the albatross. 

 This is one of the largest and most formidable of the South Sea birds ; 

 being of the gull kind, and taking its prey upon the wing. Like many 

 other oceanic birds, the albatross never comes on land except for the 

 purpose of breeding ; when the attachment that exists between it and 

 the penguin is evinced in many remarkable instances ; indeed it seems 

 as firm as any that can be formed by the sincerest friends. Their 

 nests are constructed with great uniformity near to each other ; that 

 of the albatross being always in the centre of a little square, formed 

 by the nests of four penguins. But more of this in its proper place. 



Another sea-fowl peculiar to these islands is called the upland 



