Twice already I have mentioned that strayed chicks fall a prey to “hooligan” cocks. These hang about the rookery often in little bands. At the beginning of the season there are very few of them, but later they increase greatly, do much damage, and cause a great deal of annoyance to the peaceful inhabitants. The few to be found at first probably are cocks who have not succeeded in finding mates, and consequently are “at a loose end.” Later on, as their numbers are so greatly increased, they must be widowers, whose mates have lost their lives in one way or another.
Many of the colonies, especially those nearer the water, are plagued by little knots of “hooligans,” who hang about their outskirts, and should a chick go astray it stands a good chance of losing its life at their hands. The crimes which they commit are such as to find no place in this book, but it is interesting indeed to note that, when nature intends them to find employment, these birds, like men degenerate in idleness.
Some way back I made some allusion to the way in which many of the penguins were choosing sites up the precipitous sides of the Cape at the back of the rookery. Later I came to the conclusion that this was purely the result of their love of climbing. There was one colony at the very summit of the Cape,[(7)] whose inhabitants could only reach their nests by a long and trying climb to the top and then a walk of some hundred yards across a steep snow slope hanging over the very brink of a sheer drop of seven hundred feet on to the sea-ice.
Fig. 61. ADÉLIE WITH CHICK TWELVE DAYS OLD
During the whole of the time when they were rearing their young, these mountaineers had to make several journeys during each twenty-four hours to carry their enormous bellyfuls of euphausia all the way from the sea to their young on the nests—a weary climb for their little legs and bulky bodies. The greater number who had undertaken this did so at a time when there were ample spaces unoccupied in the most eligible parts of the rookery.
I have mentioned that large masses of ice were stranded by the sea along the shores of the rookery. These fragments of bergs, some of them fifteen to twenty feet in height, formed a miniature mountain range along the shore. All day parties of penguins were to be seen assiduously climbing the steep sides of this little range. Time after time, when half way up, they would descend to try another route, and often when with much pains one had scaled a slippery incline, he would come sliding to the bottom, only to pick himself up and have another try. ([Fig. 63.])
Generally, this climbing was done by small parties who had clubbed together, as they generally do, from social inclination. It was not unusual for a little band of climbers to take as much as an hour or more over climbing to the summit. Arrived at the top they would spend a variable period there, sometimes descending at once, sometimes spending a considerable time there, gazing contentedly about them, or peering over the edge to chatter with other parties below.
Again, about half a mile from the beach, a large berg some one hundred feet in height was grounded in fairly deep water, accessible at first over the sea-ice, but later, when this had gone, surrounded by open water. Its sides were sheer except on one side, which sloped steeply from the water's edge to the top.