303 
includes two nestlings of Eudyptula minor, with down still adhering to the plumage ; and in these 
young birds the bill is fully one third larger than that of an adult example of E. undina in the 
same group. 
On January 18th I visited the Rurima Rocks in the Bay of Plenty and dug out several of these 
Penguins from their deep subterranean burrows. One was an adult male, in perfect plumage, which 
bit savagely on being taken hold of and uttered a low growling note. After examining the bird I 
turned it loose, and it was amazing to see with what celerity he trundled over the stony beach and 
dived into the surf, not appearing again on the surface till he was well out at sea. In another hole I 
found an adult female with her plumage much faded and worn, indicating the close of the breeding- 
season, which probably commences about September. I found two nestlings of very unequal size, and 
covered with down, in a hole by themselves ; and the natives brought me another young bird in a 
more advanced state, having the bright plumage of the adult, but with a broad yoke of blackish down 
adhering to its shoulders, with a remnant also on the flippers. 
Many of the young of both this and the preceding species lose their lives, in the months of 
January and February, oAving to their inexperience in keeping ofi" a lee shore when the surf is 
breaking. They are cast ashore and perish on the sands, where I have counted a dozen in less than 
a mile’s walk. I found them particularly abundant on the open beach at Waeheke, in the exact spot 
where, in 1864, H.M.S. ‘ Harrier ’ pitched a shell into a retreating body of Ngatiporou warriors, 
killing their chief, Poihipi, with several of his followers, whose bodies were afterwards buried in the 
sand-hills near the spot where they fell. The encroachments of the sea have exposed the bones of 
these unfortunate braves, and they are now tossed about with the ebb and flow of the tide, just as 
remorselessly as the bodies of these little Penguins — victims of the pitiless storm and rolling surf. 
They swim and dive Avith great activity ; resting their bodies on the surface with the whole of 
the back exposed and the head raised they travel along at marvellous speed, diving under the moment 
any danger threatens. 
I have found this little Penguin far more tractable than the crested species (Eudyptes pachyrhyn- 
cJius), for under judicious management it will soon become perfectly tame. I have on several occasions 
endeavoured to keep the Crested Penguins alive, but I could never induce them to eat anything. A 
very fine one sulked in my aviary for a Avhole week Avithout, so far as I could discover, eating a morsel 
of anything. In the end, I had (adopting an Irishman’s expression) “ to save its life by killing it. 
This bird Avas sent to me by Captain Fairchild, of the Government steamboat ‘Hinemoa,’ who 
had captured it with many others in CasAvell Sound, where he found these Penguins breeding in 
the early part of September. He also presented me with six specimens of the egg, all collected by 
himself in that locality ; they Avere found under shelter of the rocks, and there were generally two, 
but sometimes three, in a nest. It was very amusing, he states, td watch the proceedings of the birds 
after their nests had been plundered. They Avere breeding in a colony and all close together. On 
strutting up to this breeding-place and finding their own eggs missing, they would deliberately com- 
mence to steal from their neighbours, pushing the eggs along the ground into their own nests with 
their bills, and appropriating them in the most methodical way. Major Mair s bird of the same 
species (mentioned on p. 288) would come up regularly at feeding-time and Avould make its wants 
knoAvn by a loud chuckle accompanied by a comical twisting of its neck. It had also a habit of 
Avaddling off to a duck-yard, a distance of a quarter of a mile, apparently for company, and then 
coming back at the usual time to be fed. 
