BIRDS OF THE AUSTRALASIAN SOUTH POLAR QUADRANT. 
only by a few dozen stragglers even so late as October 19th, 1903. Within 
a week they numbered many thousands, the nesting sites had been appro¬ 
priated, the stones and pebbles with which they make their nests had been 
freely fought for, and were now by theft being as freely circulated from one 
end of the rookery to the other. 
The Penguins’ courtship was in full swing, and on every nest squatted 
the lady while her knight slept standing at her side, or woke to pay her the 
attention that his chivalry suggested. There are many misunderstandings in 
these colonies over the misappropriation of property. The nests were all 
too close to one another, and he had the biggest nest who could most 
successfully annex his neighbour’s pebbles and prevent his own from being 
stolen. Needless to say, there was hardly a stone of his nest but had been 
taken from someone else. 
The males fight with each other. The females, sitting on their nests, 
have quarrels with their neighbours, but whereas they follow the time-honoured 
custom of fighting with their bills, attempting to cut out each other’s tongue, the 
males fought chiefly with their weight and flippers, and the blows resounded 
afar as they were hailed down upon the unlucky wight, with a torrent of abuse. 
But plucky they certainly are, for again and again, when overborne and 
forced to give way a bit on all fours, the beaten individual will be seen to 
turn and confront his persecutor on his legs again, his eyes aflame, his ruffle 
up, his chest out, and his flippers working like a windmill. 
The voice of the Adelie Penguin caimot be ignored, especially when one 
hears it flowing freely from the throats of many thousands. From a distance 
it is like a whistling roar. They begin at one’s approach in a low, hoarse, 
swearing growl, which gets gradually louder and higher in pitch, while the 
bird bridles up with ruffled crest in front of his swearing spouse. Then, making 
a wild dash at the intruder’s legs, he seizes such garments as he can reach 
and unmercifully batters his shins with a rain of blows that have been well 
compared to the rattle of a boy’s stick along some corrugated iron palings. 
The noise is kept up night and day, with a lull about noon. The call 
note is “ Aark ” or “ Caark ” and is best imitated by blowing sharply on 
the edge of a blade of sword-grass held between the ball of the thumb and 
the index finger. Sleep is snatched 'when and where it is needed, and birds 
may be found sleeping in the rookery at all times of the day or night, as well 
as on the ice-floe miles away from anywhere. 
The voice of the chicken is a whistling pipe, very shrill, very pathetic, 
and very aggravating^ persistent, one would think, to the adults, who often 
show their annoyance by scolding their infants roundly. As the nestling 
grows, the pipe gets louder and more shrill and more persistent until the down 
