55° 
PENGUINS. 
pace, by a series of successive leaps out of the water, and splashes into it again, 
describing short curves in the air, taking headers out of the water and headers 
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 there struggled 
and jumped up amongst the boulders and revealed themselves as wet and dripping 
penguins, for such they were/’ On landing, the penguins always make for cer¬ 
tain well-defined tracts leading up to the “ rookeries,” as their places of assembly 
are called, and where they not unfrequently collect in thousands; these main 
tracts branching out into a number of diverging paths when they reach the 
rookery. The nest of the rock-hopper is merely a shallow depression in the black 
soil, which may or may not be lined with a few stalks of dry grass. In this are 
deposited two greenish white eggs, about the size of those of a duck, in the incuba¬ 
tion of which both male and female birds take their share. The black-footed 
species, according to Layard, deposits, however, but a single white egg, which rests 
on the bare ground. On the other hand, the jackass-penguin is in the habit of 
nesting in burrows, which may be as much as twenty feet in depth; and the same 
is also not unfrequently the case with the little blue penguin of New Zealand, 
although the two eggs of this species are sometimes laid in the crevices of rocks. 
The breeding-time of this species on the islands off the Cape lasts through August, 
September, and October. 
The penguins inhabiting Tristan da Cunha migrate about April, and return in 
Juty or August; but where they go seems not to be ascertained, although it is 
quite certain that they cannot remain at sea for such a protracted period. Although 
during their aquatic journey they do not travel with anything like the speed of 
birds on the wing, they have, as Moseley remarks, the compensating advantage of 
a constant supply of food. Writing of the habits of the little blue penguin, Gould 
observes that “ its powers of progression in the deep are truly astonishing; its 
swimming powers are in fact so great that it stems the waves of the most turbulent 
seas with the utmost facility, and during the severest gale descends to the bottom, 
where, among beautiful beds of coral and forests of seaweed, it paddles about in 
search of crustaceans, small fish, and marine vegetables, all of which kinds of food 
were found in the stomachs of those I dissected.” Of the jackass-penguin, Darwin 
says that when crawling, it may be said, on four legs, through the tussocks or on 
the side of a grassy cliff, it moves so very quickly that it might easily be taken 
for a quadruped. When at sea and fishing, it comes to the surface for the purpose 
of breathing with such velocity, and dives again so instantaneously, that I defy 
any one at first sight to be sure that it is not a fish leaping for sport. This species, 
by the way, derives its popular name from its habit, when on shore, of throwing 
back its head and giving vent to a cry not unlike a donkey’s bray. 
