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] |
ADÉLIE PENGUINS[(1)]
INTRODUCTION
The penguins of the Antarctic regions very rightly have been termed the true inhabitants of that country. The species is of great antiquity, fossil remains of their ancestors having been found, which showed that they flourished as far back as the eocene epoch. To a degree far in advance of any other bird, the penguin has adapted itself to the sea as a means of livelihood, so that it rivals the very fishes. This proficiency in the water has been gained at the expense of its power of flight, but this is a matter of small moment, as it happens.
In few other regions could such an animal as the penguin rear its young, for when on land its short legs offer small advantage as a means of getting about, and as it cannot fly, it would become an easy prey to any of the carnivora which abound in other parts of the globe. Here, however, there are none of the bears and foxes which inhabit the North Polar regions, and once ashore the penguin is safe.
The reason for this state of things is that there is no food of any description to be had inland. Ages back, a different state of things existed: tropical forests abounded, and at one time, the seals ran about on shore like dogs. As conditions changed, these latter had to take to the sea for food, with the result that their four legs, in course of time, gave place to wide paddles or “flippers,” as the penguins' wings have done, so that at length they became true inhabitants of the sea.