PENGUINS. 
549 
Habits. 
line through the eye. Humboldt’s penguin has the white line running just above 
the eye, and no white area below the same. 
Penguins, writes a recent observer, are the strangest creatures 
ever seen; presenting a most curious appearance, both when strutting 
about with their padded feet over the snow, or when gliding on their breasts down 
a slope, toboggan-fashion. When a visitor lands upon the Antarctic ice, the 
emperor-penguins approach 
him fearlessly with their 
duck-like cry; a proceed¬ 
ing; which too often leads 
to their destruction. Their 
tenacity of life is, however, 
marvellous, exceeding even 
that of the proverbial cat; 
the writer just quoted 
stating that he has known 
an emperor-penguin to live 
after its skull has been 
hopelessly smashed in. All 
the species are gregarious, 
frequently assembling in 
tens of thousands; and 
when on the land during 
the breeding-season are in 
the habit of ranging them- 
. selves in dong lines on the 
ledges of the rocks or ice, 
thus simulating the appear¬ 
ance of soldiers, when seen 
from a distance. Although 
the king-penguins in our 
coloured Plate are repre¬ 
sented with the beaks 
extended horizontally, this 
position, according to 
Moseley, is incorrect, the birds really standing with the head and neck stretched 
vertically upwards. The food of penguins consists exclusively of fish, which the 
birds capture beneath the surface by their agility in swimming and diving, when 
the paddle-like wings are used as the chief instruments of progression. So 
thoroughly, indeed, are they at home in the water, that they are apt to be taken 
for dolphins rather than birds, as is testified by Moseley, who writes that on first 
approaching the shore of Kerguelen Land he was astonished at seeing what 
appeared to be a shoal of small porpoises or dolphins. “I could not imagine,” 
he continues, “ what the things could be, unless they were indeed some marvel¬ 
lously small cetaceans; they showed black above and white beneath, and came 
alono- in a shoal of fifty or more, from seawards towards the shore at a rapid 
HUMBOLDT’S PENGUIN. 
(From Bartlett, Proc. Zool. Soc., 1879.) 
