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observes it in the daylight, and in the midst of other noises ; but at night it is weird enough, and the 
lonely officer of the middle watch, whose thoughts may have wandered for the moment from the 
imminent iceberg back to some more genial memory, is often pulled up with a start by that gruff 
‘ whaat ’ alongside in the darkness, close below the bridge.” 
And again (at p. 179): — “ Beyond the garden the tussock grass of the Tristan group [Spartina 
arundinacea) forms a dense jungle. The root-clumps or ‘ tussocks ’ are two or three feet in width and 
about a foot high, and the spaces between them one or two feet wide. The tuft of thick grass-stems 
(seven or eight feet in height) rises strong and straight for a yard or so, and then the culms separate 
from one another and mingle with those of the neighbouring tussocks. This makes a bush very difficult 
to make one’s way through, for the heads of grass are closely entangled together on a level with the 
face and chest. In this scrub one of the Crested Penguins, probably Eudyptes chrysocome, called 
by the natives in common with other species of the genus Eudyptes ‘ Bock Hoppers,’ has established a 
rookery. From a great distance, even so far as the hut, or the ship, one could hear an incessant noise 
like the barking of a myriad of dogs in all possible keys, and as we came near the place bands of Penguins 
were seen constantly going and returning between the rookery and the sea. All at once, out at sea, a 
hundred yards or so from the shore, the water in seen in motion, a dark red beak and sometimes a pair 
of eyes appearing now and then for a moment above the surface. The moving water approaches the 
shore in a wedge-shape, and with great rapidity a band of perhaps from three to four hundred 
Penguins scramble out upon the stones, again exchanging the vigorous and graceful movements and 
attitudes for which they are so remarkable while in the water, for helpless and ungainly ones, 
tumbling over the stones, and apparently with difficulty assuming their normal position, upright on 
their feet, which are set far back, and with their fin-like wings hanging in a useless kind of way at 
their sides. When they have got fairly out of the water, beyond the reach of the surf, they stand 
together for a few minutes, drying and dressing themselves and talking loudly, apparently congratu- 
lating themselves on their safe landing, and then they scramble in a body over the stony beach, many 
falling and pulling themselves up again with the help of their flippers on the way, and make straight 
for one particular gangway into the scrub, along which they waddle in regular order up to the 
rookery. In the meantime a group of about equal number appear from the rookery at the end of 
another of the paths. When they get out of the grass on to the beach they all stop and talk and 
look about them, sometimes for three or four minutes. They then with one consent scuttle down 
over the stones into the water and long lines of ripple, radiating rapidly from their place of departure, 
are the only indications that the birds are speeding out to sea. The tussock-brake, which in 
Inaccessible Island is perhaps four or five acres in extent, was alive with Penguins breeding. [This 
was in the latter part of October.] The nests are built of the stems and leaves of the Spartina in the 
spaces between the tussocks. They are two or three inches high, with a slight depression for the 
eggs, and about a foot in diameter. The gangways between the tussocks, along which Penguins are 
constantly passing, are wet and slushy, and the tangled grass, the strong ammoniacal smell, and the 
deafening noise, continually penetrated by loud separate sounds which have a startling resemblance 
to the human voice, make a walk through the rookery neither easy nor pleasant. 
“ The Penguin is thickly covered with the closest felting of down and feathers, except a longitu- 
dinal band, which in the female extends along the middle line of the lower part of the abdomen, and 
which, at all events in the breeding-season, is without feathers. The bird seats herself almost uprio-ht 
upon the eggs, supported by the feet and the stiff feathers of the tail, the feathers of the abdomen 
drawn apart, and the naked band directly applied to the eggs, doubtless with the object of bringing 
them into immediate contact with the source of warmth. The female and the male sit by turns; but 
the featherless space, if present, is not nearly so marked in the male. When they shift quarters they 
sidle-up close together, and the change is made so rapidly that the eggs are scarcely uncovered for a 
