ADELIE PENGUIN. 
The following account is taken from Dr. E. A. Wilson’s National Antarctic 
Expedition, published in 1907. 
On January oth, 1902, we were for the first time amongst the more 
extensive ice-floes, and these, being far more closely packed, afforded an 
excellent opportunity for the inquisitive little Adelie Penguins to run long 
distances towards us and with many halts to gaze and cry in wonder to their 
companions; now walking along the edge of a floe in search of a narrow spot 
to jump and so avoid the water, now with head down and much hesitating, 
judging the width of the narrow gap, to give a little standing jump across, as 
would a child, and running on the faster to make up for its delay. Again, coming 
to a wider lead of water necessitating a plunge, our inquisitive visitor would 
be lost for a moment, to reappear like a jack-in-the-box on a nearer floe, where, 
wagging its tail, he immediately resumed his race towards the ship. Being 
now but a hundred yards or so from us he pokes his head constantly forward 
on this side and on that to try and make out something of this new strange 
sight, crying aloud to his friends in his amazement, and exhibiting the most 
amusing indecision between his desire for further investigation and doubt as to 
the wisdom and propriety of closer contact with so huge a beast. 
The number of Adelie Penguins increased day by day as we made our way 
through the ice-pack towards the south. We saxv about an equal number 
of birds in the adult and immature plumage to begin with, but when we reached, 
on January 8th, the southern edge of the pack, those in adult plumage vastly 
preponderated. 
The pack-ice is a place of safety for the immature birds ; here they live and 
move and find their living in comparative safety for the first two years of their 
existence, possibly in many cases for the first three years. Here they feel 
nothing of the ocean swell, which is practically lost under the w r eight of 
floating ice within half a mile of the open sea, while they can find shelter from 
the wind and drift under a friendly hummock. Here they have always a handy 
retreat upon an ice-floe when hunted by the Sea Leopard (Stenorhinchus leptonyx), 
or the Killer Whale (Orca gladiator). Here, too, they bask and sleep in safety when 
they have filled themselves to satiety with the crustaceans which literally swarm 
amid the ice-floes, probably because of the abundance of diatomaceus refuse 
in the melting and discoloured ice. Here, too, they may confidently trust to 
a foothold which will last them while they moult their feathers in the autumn, 
when for a fortnight they are bound to avoid the water and sit disconsolately 
fasting in little knots under the lee of one of the larger hummocks. 
As we entered open water from the southern limit of the pack, and came in 
sight of the cliffs of Cape Adare, the numbers of adult Adelies rapidly increased 
and no more were seen in the plumage of immaturity. 
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