INACCESSIBLE ISLAND. 
197 
of which, above the occiput, are yellow ; red eyes, with small black 
pupils and a vicious expression; back and head slate colour, and 
throat and breast white ; tail short and black, feet pink, bill red and 
very, very sharp. 
The gorfews make their nests among the grassy tussocks of the 
earth-bank already spoken of; and as they land from the sea at 
fixed points, regular roads strike right into their rookeries. " As you 
come up," says Lord George Campbell, " to a group of a hundred or 
more squatted on the beach, they all stare at you; then, thinking there's 
something wrong, all turn together as one, and go hop-hop-hopping 
over the large stones, their yellow crests flapping up and down, at 
every hop bobbing their old heads, hunching their old backs, and wab- 
bling their flappers. Away they go, hop-hopping rapidly oft", stopping 
after every jump to recover and make sure of their equilibrium, and 
altogether ludicrously like a crowd of hunch-backed old men with 
their feet tied. But the water is the element to see them at home in. 
When fii'st we landed, we were very much puzzled by seeing a large, 
odd-looking fish leaping out of the water in shoals, and in this manner 
proceeding rapidly along. At last somebody said, ' They're penguins ! ' 
And so they were, — an odd sight, truly ' Among the stems of the 
tall tussock grass they were sitting about in thousands on their nests, 
consisting of a layer of grass. It was not pleasant walking in the 
rookery, dreadfully dirty and horrible smells, to say nothing of the 
fierce digs we got in our legs, and the fiendish noise — something between 
the last notes of a donkey's bray and a deep-voiced sheep— a perfect 
roar, which is kept up day and night, and plainly audible from the 
ship, sounding on a still night like the roar of a heavy surf." 
It was found that no nest contained more than two eggs, and 
sometimes only one ; the said egg being somewhat larger than a 
dorking's, and coloured dirty white, with brown stains. As for the 
newly-hatched young, they were horrible, featherless, egg-shaped, 
palpitating little bits of life. Not unfrequently the eggs were cracked 
inside by the young, whose bills could be seen projecting. As for the 
parents, they wore a truly motherly appearance ; but when sitting on 
their nests or guarding their young, would glare at an intruder with 
