“Then let’s go egg-gathering,” exclaimed Ned, eagerly.
The proposal is accepted by Seagriff, who is about to set out with the two youths, when, looking inquiringly round, he says, “As thar ain’t anything in the shape of a stick about, we had best take the boat-hook an’ a couple of oars.”
“What for?” ask the others, in some surprise.
“You’ll larn, by-an’-bye,” answers the old salt, who, like most of his kind, is somewhat given to mystification.
In accordance with this suggestion, each of the boys arms himself with an oar, leaving Seagriff the boat-hook.
They enter among the tussac, and after tramping through it a hundred yards or so, they come upon a “penguinnery,” sure enough. It is a grand one, extending over acres, with hundreds of nests—if a slight depression in the naked surface of the ground deserves to be so called. But no eggs are in any of them, fresh or otherwise; instead, in each sits a young, half-fledged bird, and one only, as this kind of penguin lays and hatches but a single egg. Many of the nests have old birds standing beside them, each occupied in feeding its solitary chick, duckling, gosling, or whatever the penguin offspring may be properly called. This being of itself a curious spectacle, the disappointed egg-hunters stop awhile to witness it, for they are still outside the bounds of the “penguinnery,” and the birds have as yet taken no notice of them. By each nest is a little mound, on which the mother stands perched, from time to time projecting her head outward and upward, at the same time giving forth a queer chattering noise, half quack, half bray, with the air of a stump orator haranguing an open-air audience. Meanwhile, the youngster stands patiently waiting below, evidently with a fore-knowledge of what is to come. Then, after a few seconds of the quacking and braying, the mother bird suddenly ducks her head, with the mandibles of her beak wide agape, between which the fledgling thrusts its head, almost out of sight, and so keeps it for more than a minute. Finally, withdrawing it, up again goes the head of the mother, with neck craned out, and oscillating from side to side in a second spell of speech-making. These curious actions are repeated several times, the entire performance lasting for a period of nearly a quarter of an hour. When it ends, possibly from the food supply having become exhausted, the mother bird leaves the little glutton to itself and scuttles off seaward to replenish her throat larder with a fresh stock of molluscs.
Although during their long four years’ cruise Edward Gancy and Henry Chester have seen many a strange sight, they think the one now before their eyes as strange as any, and unique in its quaint comicality. They would have continued their observations much longer but for Seagriff, to whom the sight is neither strange nor new. It has no interest for him, save economically, and in this sense he proceeds to utilise it, saying, after an interrogative glance sent all over the breeding-ground, “Sartin, there ain’t a single egg in any o’ the nests. It’s too late in the season for them now, an’ I might ’a’ known it. Wal, we won’t go back empty-handed, anyhow. The young penguins ain’t sech bad eatin’, though the old ’uns taste some’at fishy, b’sides bein’ tough as tan leather. So let’s heave ahead, an’ grab a few of the goslin’s. But look out, or you’ll get your legs nipped!”
At which all three advance upon the “penguinnery,” the two youths still incredulous as to there being any danger—in fact, rather under the belief that the old salt is endeavouring to impose on their credulity. But they are soon undeceived. Scarcely have they set foot within the breeding precinct, when fully half a score of old penguins rush fiercely at each of the intruders, with necks outstretched, mouths open, and mandibles snapping together with a clatter like that of castanets.
Then follows a laying about with oars and boat-hook, accompanied by shouts on the side of the attacking party, and hoarse, guttural screams on that of the attacked. The racket is kept up till the latter are at length beaten off, though but few of them are slain outright; for the jackass penguin, with its thick skull and dense coat of feathers, takes as much killing as a cat.
The young birds, too, make resistance against being captured, croaking and hissing like so many little ganders, and biting sharply. But all this does not prevent our determined party from finally securing some ten or twelve of the featherless creatures, and subsequently carrying them to the friends at the shore, where they are delivered into the eager hands of Caesar.