ANTARCTIC PENGUINS
A STUDY OF THEIR SOCIAL HABITS
BY
DR. G. MURRAY LEVICK, R.N.
ZOOLOGIST TO THE BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION [1910–1913]
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
First Published March 1914
Second Impression May 1914
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1914
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
|---|---|
| INTRODUCTION | [1] |
| PART I | |
| THE FASTING PERIOD | [17] |
| PART II | |
| DOMESTIC LIFE OF THE ADÉLIE PENGUIN | [51] |
| APPENDIX | [119] |
| PART III | |
| McCORMICK'S SKUA GULL | [125] |
| A SHORT NOTE ON EMPEROR PENGUINS | [134] |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| “Occasionally an unaccountable ‘broodiness’ seemed to take possession of the penguins” | [Frontispiece] |
| To face p. | |
| An angry Adélie | [2] |
| Dozing | [4] |
| Waking up, stretching, and yawning | [4] |
| Pack-ice | [8] |
| Heavy seas in the autumn | [8] |
| “throw up masses of ice” | [10] |
| “which are frozen into a compact mass” | [10] |
| “and later, form the beautiful terraces of the ice-foot” | [14] |
| Penguins at the rookery | [14] |
| In the foreground a mated pair have begun to build | [20] |
| The rookery beginning to fill up | [22] |
| “The hens would keep up this peck-pecking hour after hour” | [24] |
| An affectionate couple | [24] |
| “Side by side … nests of very big stones and nests of very small stones” | [26] |
| On the march to the rookery | [28] |
| Part of the line of approaching birds, several miles in length | [30] |
| Arriving at the rookery | [32], [34] |
| Adélies arriving | [36] |
| A cock carrying a stone to his nest | [36] |
| Several interesting things are taking place here | [38] |
| Three cocks in rivalry | [40] |
| Two of the cocks squaring up for battle | [40] |
| Hard at it | [42] |
| The end of the battle | [42] |
| The proposal | [44] |
| Cocks fighting for hens | [46], [48] |
| Penguin on nest | [48] |
| Showing the position of the two eggs | [50] |
| An Adélie in “ecstatic” attitude | [50] |
| Floods | [52] |
| Flooded | [54] |
| A nest with stones of mixed sizes | [54] |
| “Hour after hour … they fought again and again” | [56] |
| A nest on a rock | [58] |
| “One after another, the rest of the party followed him” | [58] |
| A joy ride | [60] |
| A knot of penguins on the ice-foot | [62] |
| An Adélie leaping from the water | [64] |
| An Adélie leaping four feet high and ten feet long | [66] |
| Jumping on to slippery ice | [68] |
| “When they succeeded in pushing one of their number over, all would crane their necks over the edge” | [70] |
| Diving flat into shallow water | [72], [74], [76], [78] |
| Adélies “porpoising” | [78] |
| A perfect dive into deep water | [80] |
| Sea-leopards “lurk beneath the overhanging ledges” | [82] |
| A sea-leopard's head | [84] |
| A sea-leopard 10 ft. 6½ in. long | [86] |
| A young sea-leopard on sea-ice | [86] |
| “With graceful arching of his neck, appeared to assure her of his readiness to take charge” | [88] |
| “The chicks began to appear” | [90] |
| An Adélie being sick | [90] |
| Method of feeding the young | [92] |
| Profile of an Adélie chick | [94] |
| A task becoming impossible | [96] |
| Adélie with chick twelve days old | [98] |
| A couple with their chicks | [100] |
| Adélie penguins have a strong love of climbing for its own sake | [102] |
| Adélies on the ice-foot | [104], [106], [108] |
| “An imprisoned hen was poking her head up” | [110] |
| “Her mate appeared to be very angry with her” | [110] |
| “When she broke out, they became reconciled” | [112] |
| Adélie nests on top of Cape Adare | [112] |
| “Leapt at one another into the air” | [130] |
| A Skua by its chick | [130] |
| An Emperor Penguin | [134] |
| Profile of an Emperor | [136] |