ADELIE PENGUIN. 
is shed, and the bird undertakes its own responsibilities. It then drops the 
whine and takes on the cry of the adult, a little more sin-ill and somewhat 
quavering at first, but gradually merging into the full-voiced cry of the adult. 
No nest at Cape Crozier contained eggs on October 19th till 29th. The 
nesting sites are arranged with some method, not here and there as the builders 
fancy, but in groups with neutral ground between them. From ten days 
to a fortnight after their arrival the birds begin to lay, and when each nest 
contains two eggs the serious incubation begins. Lasting from thirty-one 
to thirty-four days. Three days elapsing between the laying of the eggs. 
Incubation is shared by the cock as well as by the hen. I had the opportunity 
of seeing the two change places. The hen presumably was sitting on the eggs 
when the cock came up to her and she presently 7 stood up. Then began the 
weird motions that go on in courting times. Standing breast to breast each 
rubbed its neck against the other’s, first one side and then the other alternately, 
with a gentle cackle all the time. The cock was now 7 and again allov r ed to 
see the eggs and touch them with his beak and rearrange a stone or two of the 
nest, and this w r ent on for several minutes, she loath to go, and he, I pre¬ 
sume, assuring her the while that she should go and get some shrimps, for 
there is no fasting during the period of incubation ; presently the hen stepped 
off and the cock at once walked in and commenced to sit upon the eggs. The 
climatic conditions for these birds is not so severe as those vdiicli the Emperor 
Penguin faces, but they are severe enough in their way. During September to 
April the lowest temperature the bird would be subjected to was — 41 - 8° in 
October. 
Up to January 7 9th the chicks were still all in their several nests, being 
tended and jealously watched, and kept from wandering or being interfered 
with, by their parents; tv 7 o chicks were in every nest, but often remarkably 
different in size, one being twice as big as the other and probably 7 three days older. 
When the chicks huddle together in heaps a few reliable guardians are 
stationed in a circle round the creche. In groups, in which they mutually 7 support 
one another from the Skuas, they are more protected than v r ould otherwise 
be the case. The Skuas, however, are always on the w 7 atch and sooner or later 
a chicken is separated from its group and falls a victim. When this happens 
the complete indifference of the older Penguins was surprising, for they showed 
the greatest courage in defending their eggs and chick from us. 
Of its cleanliness there is nothing to be said but praise, for no bird on earth 
could possibly be more strictly clean than the Adelie Penguin. 
It takes two years to reach maturity. It joins the breeding colony for 
the first time not at the end of its first, but of its second year. Appearing 
from the egg in the middle of December, the colour of the little downy-coated 
83 
