LITTLE PENGUIN. 
braying sound, first one bird and then the other ; and in the caves where 
numbers of these birds had their nests, the sound was kept up more or less all 
night. The noise is very loud and discordant. 
“ The young. . . obtained their food by putting their beak inside that of 
their parent — the young being very noisy at feeding-time. They do not leave 
the nest until fully fledged, although when about three-parts grown their 
parents leave them to themselves during the day. 
“ The birds remained perfectly quiet all day on their nests, except when 
disturbed.” 
Mr. J. W. Mellor says they are plentiful in the South Australian waters, 
Kangaroo Island and other islands off the coast, and on the rocky mainland of 
Eyre’s Peninsula. They burrow slightly, but more often lay their eggs under 
the thick, low’ bushes and herbage found on the bleak, rocky shores, or under 
shelving rocks. He found it breeding on The Nobbies, Phillip Island, in 
November, and also on Penguin Island. 
Mr. A. F. Basset Hull* writing of this bird on Montague Island says : “ The 
numbers breeding there could not be even roughly estimated, as at no time were 
there any large groups in sight, but their runs and burrows are found all over 
the south island. During the day the birds are either out fishing or, if on the 
land, they are under the thick vegetation, and only discoverable after a long 
search. In the evening the fishers return about dusk, landing near the jetty or 
on the extreme southern point of the island, which is quite low. They come 
ashore in twos, and leisurely waddle up the path, crooning their tremulous little 
song, and, forming into straggling groups like tired soldiers, proceed on their 
way home, breaking off from time to time as they reach the turn-off to their own 
particular ‘ run.’ I think that this island is the most northerly breeding place 
of this species.” Since this was written, Mr. Hull on the authority of Mr. Bailey 
records it breeding on ToUgates, a group of islets off Bateman’s Bay, about 
forty miles north of Montague Island. 
The bird figured and described is a male, collected on Sandy Hook Island, 
West Australia, by Mr. J. T. Tunney, on the I5th of November, 1904. 
Hitherto Australian ornithologists have recognised two species of Little 
Penguin : a larger, light-coloured species, known as the Little Penguin — or 
Eudyptula minor Forster — and a smaller dark-coloured species, the Fairy 
Penguin, or Eudyptula undina Gould. New Zealand workers have been 
divided between accepting the above two as residents of their country, or the 
alternative of the Blue Penguin — or Eudyptula minor Forster — and the White- 
flippered Penguin — or Eudyptula albosignata Finsch. The first notice is 
* Emu, VIII., p. 83 (1908). 
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