200 
THE PENGUIN'S FOES. 
cemedly cruising about the nests, and darting at a prize whenever a 
mother-bird is off her guard. These sheath-bills are not unlike white 
pigeons, but they have longer legs, and a curious horny sheath drawn 
over the base of the upper mandible. They are found on the coasts 
of Patagonia, and on the islands of the Antarctic Ocean, feeding on 
molluscs, small crustaceans, carrion fish, and the like, and thereby 
acquiring so foul a flavour that not even a sailor, weary of salt meat 
and hard biscuit, will touch them. 
Some of the gulls, too, are fierce enemies of the penguins. And 
what numbers frequent these remote, desolate, wind-swept patches of 
rock ! Black-backed gulls, hawk-gulls, carrion-gulls, — the air seems 
a flutter of wings ! Thousands of other sea-birds frequent the same 
localities, — the pretty Cape pigeon, the broad-winged albatross, the 
stormy petrel, the black-capped tern, and flocks of ducks, which, as yet, 
have not learned to dread the presence of man. Lord George Campbell, 
speaking of Kerguelen Land, the " Land of Desolation," as Cook aptly 
called it, says that he found there four kinds of birds, all living in 
holes burrowed into the soft moss and turf — the little gray "prion," 
two kinds of large petrels, and a little pufiin about the size of a stormy 
petrel. He found also the nests of shags, sheath-bills, terns, and ducks 
— a duck suddenly starting up from under his feet, sometimes followed 
by a brood of pretty tiny ducklings, the old mother skilfully pretend- 
ing to be wounded in order to divert attention from her young. What 
taught her this stratagem ? Kerguelen Land is seldom visited by 
ships, and she could have had no experience of man's tender mercies. 
Here the king penguin, a finer fellow than his crested congeners, waddles 
to and fro — a solemn and a pompous being, with a regal air of indiffer- 
ence which sits well upon him. When ashore he seems to spend his 
time in standing still, yawning, occasionally pecking at his feathers, and 
sleeping; never lying down, however, but maintaining a majestically 
erect position. 
THE SOLAN GOOSE. 
Various are the species of guUs, and terns or sea-swallows, which 
haunt the open coasts, and may be seen traversing the wastes of ocean 
on rapid wing. Nor, among the sea-birds, must we forget the solan 
