GREBES AND DIVERS, PENGUINS, TUBE-NOSED BIRDS 43 
shoal of what looked like extremely active, very small porpoises or dolphins. . . . They showed 
black above and white beneath, and came along in a shoal of fifty or more . . . towards the 
shore at a rapid pace, by a series of successive leaps out of the water and leaps into it 
again. . . . Splash, splash, went this marvellous shoal of animals, till they went splash through 
the surf on to the black, stony beach, and then struggled and jumped up amongst the boulders 
and revealed themselves as wet and dripping penguins.” 
Like their relatives in other parts of the world, penguins breed in huge communities known 
as “ rookeries,” a rookery being peopled by tens of thousands. Their nests, made of small 
stones, are placed among the tall grass and reached by beaten pathways, exceedingly difficult 
to walk through. Professor Moseley thus describes a “rookery ” ; “ At first you t / to avoid the 
nests, but soon find that impossible ; then, maddened almost by the pain [for they bite furiously 
at the legs], stench, and noise, you have recourse to brutality. Thump, thump, goes your stick, 
and at each blow down goes a bird. Thud, thud, you hear from the men behind you as they 
kick the birds right and left off the nests; and so you go for a bit — thump, smash, whack, 
thud, ‘ caa, caa, tirr, urr,’ and the path behind you is strewn with the dead and dying and 
bleeding. Of course, it is horribly cruel thus to kill whole families of innocent birds, but it 
is absolutely necessary. One must cross the rookeries in order to explore the island at all, 
and collect the plants, or survey the coasts from the heights.” 
Penguins feed principally on Crustacea, molluscs (“ shell-fish ”), and small fish, varied with 
a little vegetable matter. Although the legs are very short, penguins yet walk with ease, and 
can, on occasion, run with considerable speed. It would appear, however, as if the largest of 
the tribe, the Emperor-PENGUIN, had become somewhat too bulky to run; for when speed is 
necessary it lies down upon the snow and propels itself with its feet, traveling, it is said, in 
this manner with incredible speed. 
Penguins, though confined to the Southern Hemisphere, enjoy a wide range and every 
variety of climate. They are found on the Antarctic ice, on the shores of South Africa, 
South America, Australia, New Zealand, and inhabit many islands of the southern seas, 
Fh^,^o by Percy Aihendon\ 
\_L.afL Town 
BLACK-FOOTED PENGUINS BATHING 
The name yackass is bestowed because the noise made by these birds closely resembles the bray of a donkey 
