430 
PENGUINS. 
water after fish, is quite astonishing. One which was 
caught in the Orkney Islands at first refused all food, and 
became so weak that it was expected to die ; at length, 
however, it was tempted to eat, and being plentifully sup- 
plied with fish, soon resumed its strength and activity. 
With a cord tied round its leg to prevent its escape, it was 
permitted to sport in the water ; hut even with this restraint, 
which must have very much impeded its motions, it per- 
formed the motions of diving and swimming with a speed 
that set all pursuit from a boat at defiance, affording the 
most convincing proof that, had it been at full liberty, no fish 
could have escaped. 
The Aptenodytes, which may he called southern Penguins, 
as they never come beyond the limits of the Southern Ocean, 
are very numerous on the lonely isles scattered over the 
dreary wilderness of those seas. The largest of these, the 
King Penguin, exceeds a Goose in size. As their legs 
project from their bodies in the same direction with their 
tails, they walk upright ; and when a flock of them are seen 
moving in file, or arranged along the ledges of the rocks, 
they appear like a company of soldiers ; for they hold their 
heads very high, with stretched necks, while their little 
flappers project like two arms. As the feathers on their 
breasts are beautifully white, with a line of black running 
across the crop, they have been by others compared to a row 
of children, with white aprons tied round their waists with 
black strings. 
The great Albatross, as we have seen, spends the chief 
part of his life on the wing ; the King Penguin, on the 
other hand, rarely quits the water, with the exception of the 
breeding season, when in some places, though not always, as 
we shall see in our account of the Albatross, in Tristan 
d’Acunha, both unite in vast flocks, and people the rugged 
rocks for a time. When a sufficient number of these birds 
are assembled on the shore, they appear, like the Herons, 
Storks, and some other species we have mentioned in the 
preceding pages, to pass a day or two in deliberation; on 
concluding the consultation, they will proceed to the execu- 
