G. Murray Levick

“ Those that nested near us seemed quickly to become used to us and to take less notice of us than those farther off. One thing, however, terrified them pitiably. We had to fetch ice for our water from some stranded floes on the ice-foot, and this we did in a little sledge. As we hauled this rattling over the pebbly rookery it made a good deal of noise, and in its path nests were deserted, the occupants fleeing in the greatest confusion, a clear road being left for the sledge, whilst on either side a line of penguins was seen retreating in the utmost terror. ”

“ Walking actually among the nests, your temper is tried sorely, as every bird within reach has a peck at your legs, and occasionally a cock attacks you bravely, battering you with his little flippers in a manner ludicrous at first but aggravating after a time, as the operation is painful and severe enough to leave bruises behind it, and naturally this begins to pall. The courage of these little birds is most remarkable and admirable.
Our hut, being built on the rookery, could only be approached through crowds of penguins. ”

“ During October 20 the stream of arrivals was incessant. Some mingled at once with the crowd, others lay in batches on the sea-ice a few yards short of the rookery, content to have got so far, and evidently feeling the need for rest after their long journey from the pack. The greater part of this journey was doubtless performed by swimming, as they crossed open water, but I think that much of it must have been done on foot over many miles of sea-ice, to account for the fatigue of many of them. ”

“ Far away from the beach the line had become thicker, and was no longer in single file, the progress of the birds being slow and steady, but when within half a mile or so from the beach, excitement seemed to take possession of them, and they would break into a run, hastening over the remaining distance, the line now being a thin one, with slight curves in it, each bird running, with wide gait, and outstretched flippers working away in unison with its little legs. ”

“ This is typical of the Adélie's attitude towards us. We are beyond their comprehension, and fear of us, anger at us, curiosity over us, although frequently shown, are displayed only for a fleeting moment. In a few minutes she might forget about the incident altogether and quietly resume her position on the empty nest, but very often she would violently attack any other bird who might happen to be standing near, and thus as we filled our buckets we left a line of altercation in our wake. ”

“ In speaking of the robbery which is such a feature of the rookery during nest building, special note must be made of the fact that violence is never under any circumstances resorted to by the thieves. When detected, these invariably beat a retreat, and offer not the least resistance to the drastic punishment they receive if they are caught by their indignant pursuers. The only disputes that ever take place over the question of property are on the rare occasions when a bona-fide misunderstanding arises over the possession of a nest. ”

“ Louis Gain, of the French Antarctic expedition, gives us the following description:
“The Adélie penguin is a brave animal, and rarely flees from danger. If it happens to be tormented, it faces its aggressor and ruffles the black feathers which cover its back. Then it takes a stand for combat, the body straight, the animal erect, the beak in the air, the wings extended, not losing sight of its enemy. ”

“ If they were not speaking words in some language of their own, their whole appearance belied them, and as they stood, some in pairs, some in groups of three or more, chattering amicably together, it became evident that they were sociable animals, glad to meet one another, and, like many men, pleased with the excuse to forget for a while their duties at home, where their mates were waiting to be relieved for their own spell off the nests. ”

“ When the birds were arriving at the rookery I watched for those who were to nest up the cliff, and several times saw birds on arriving at the rookery make for the heights without any hesitation, threading their way almost in a straight line through the nests to the screes at the bottom of the cliff, and up these to one or other of the paths leading up its side. ”

“ Hard as they can hit with their flippers, however, they are also well protected by their feathers, and being marvellously tough and enduring the end of a hard fight merely finds the vanquished bird prostrate with exhaustion and with most of the breath beaten out of his little body. The victor is invariably satisfied with this, and does not seek to dispatch him with his beak. ”

“ When the chicks are hatched and fully fledged, they are taught to swim, and when this is accomplished and they can catch food for themselves, both young and old leave the Southern limits of the sea, and make their way to the pack-ice out to the northward, thus escaping the rigors and darkness of the Antarctic winter, and keeping where they will find the open water which they need. For in the winter the seas where they nest are completely covered by a thick sheet of ice which does not break out until early in the following summer. ”

“ Air diffuses so rapidly through snow that death does not take place by suffocation, and the bird can live for weeks beneath a drift, sitting on its nest in the little chamber which it has thawed out by its own warmth. Generally after a few hours the snow abates and settles down sufficiently to expose the nest once more, but sometimes a breeze springs up which is not strong enough to blow the snow away, but simply hardens the surface of the drift into a crust which lasts for several weeks, and the birds are imprisoned in consequence. ”

“ One nest had been made on an old packing-case left by the expedition which wintered there in 1894, and several nested among the weathering bones of the seals that had died on the beach.
Although the greatest care had been taken by nearly all in the choice of sites that would be on dry ground when the thaw came later in the season, yet a few hens had gone to the other extreme, and with greatest stupidity chosen their site right down in the hollows where they were absolutely certain to be flooded later on. ”

“ They had mated at last, built their nests, procreated their species, and, in short, met the severest trials that Nature can inflict upon mind and body, and at the end of it, though in many cases blood-stained and in all caked and bedraggled with mire, they were as active and as brave as ever. ”

“ During the storm the rookery was completely silenced, most of the birds lying with their heads to the wind. A good many skuas arrived that day. Some chips of white, glistening quartz had been thrown down by our hut door recently, and later I found two of these chips in a nest about thirty yards away, showing up brightly against the black basalt of which all the pebbles on the rookery were composed.
As a rule the penguins were careful to select rounded stones for their nests, but these fragments of quartz were jagged and uncomfortable, and most unsuitable for nest building. ”

“ The consciousness of guilt, however, always makes a penguin smooth his feathers and look small, whilst indignation has the opposite effect. Often when observing a knoll crowded with nesting penguins, I have seen an apparently under-sized individual slipping quietly along among the nests, and always by his subsequent proceedings he has turned out to be a robber on the hunt for his neighbours' stones. The others, too, seemed to know it, and would have a peck at him as he passed them. ”

“ The dead bodies of hundreds of chicks are seen strewn about the rookery, and especially in the neighbourhood of the Skuas' nests, as very often they carry them there. All these dead chicks are seen to have two holes picked through their backs, one on each side, corresponding to the position of each kidney.
Besides the penguins' eggs and young, there is another fruitful source of food for the Skuas to be found along the Antarctic coasts at the early part of the year, and that is during the time when the seals are bringing forth their young upon the sea-ice. ”

“ A dead silence would ensue till a few seconds later, when they would all come to the surface some twenty or thirty yards out, and start rolling about and splashing in the water, cleaning themselves and making sounds exactly like a lot of boys calling out and chaffing one another. ”

“ They would crowd up to the very edge of the ice, dodging about and trying to push one another in. Sometimes those behind nearly would succeed in pushing the front rank in, who then would just recover themselves in time, and rushing round to the rear, endeavour to turn the tables on the others. Occasionally one actually would get pushed in, only to turn quickly under water and bound out again on to the ice like a cork shot out of a bottle. ”

“ The rest of the body is marked in the same way as the Adélie.
The mortality among the chicks being so very high, the probability is that the life of the adult is long, as otherwise the species could hardly survive. Dr. Herbert Klugh has calculated that the Emperor penguin lives for thirty-five years.
Evidence goes to show that the young birds spend their immaturity on the pack-ice, as all those sighted and collected on the pack at any distance to the northward have been immature, and no immature birds have been seen along the coasts at any time during the summer. ”

“ The Adélie penguins spend their summer and bring forth their young in the far South. Nesting on the shores of the Antarctic continent, and on the islands of the Antarctic seas, they are always close to the water, being dependent on the sea for their food, as are all Antarctic fauna; the frozen regions inland, for all practical purposes, being barren of both animal and vegetable life. ”

“ The skuas fly about over the rookery, keeping only a few yards from the ground, and should one of them see a nest vacated and the eggs exposed, if only for a few seconds, it swoops at this, and with scarcely a pause in its flight, picks up an egg in its beak and carries it to an open space on the ground, there to devour the contents. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The King penguin at the Zoological Gardens, whose sex is unknown, throws itself into the ecstatic attitude and sings a sort of song when its keeper strokes its neck. The blackfooted penguins never do it, though they breed several times a year. Figs. 26 and 32 show Adélies in ecstatic attitude.
To-day about a dozen skua gulls (Megalestris Makormiki) appeared for the first time. They did not start to nest, but sat on the sea-ice with a group of penguins, in apparent amity. A few occasionally flew about over the rookery. ”

“ During the period of incubation, which duty is shared by all, male and female alike, the egg is held in a loose fold of skin at the lower part of the abdomen, the skin of the adults being worn bare of feathers in this region.
When hatched out, the chick is coveted by every unoccupied adult, and so desperate at times are the struggles for its possession that very frequently it gets injured or killed by its would-be foster parents. Dr. Wilson has estimated the mortality among the chicks before they shed their down at 77 per cent. ”

“ Very probably this is because the agile bird can escape with such ease from the ponderous whale, and fears it no more than a terrier fears a cow, though he thinks twice before coming within reach of its jaws. ”

“ So strong is the maternal instinct of the Emperor, that frozen and lifeless chicks are carried about and nursed until their down is worn away. In fact, the scientists who visited the rookery were unable to get good specimens of dead chicks, as all of these had been treated in this way.
Fortunately the Emperor chick escapes the depredation of the Skua gull, which plays such havoc in the Adélie rookeries, because the Skua does not come south until the summer, by which time the Emperor chicks are well grown. As in the case of the Adélies, the black throat is not acquired until the second moult. ”

“ The hen would establish herself on an old nest, or in some cases scoop out a hollow in the ground and sit in or by this, waiting for a mate to propose himself. (Fig. 26.) She would not attempt to build while she remained unmated. During the first week of the nesting season, when plenty of fresh arrivals were continually pouring into the rookery, she did not have long to wait as a rule. Later, when the rookery was getting filled up, and only a few birds remained unmated in that vast crowd of some three-quarters of a million, her chances were not so good. ”

“ The only Emperor rookery known to man at the present day was discovered by Lieuts. Royds and Skelton, of Captain Scott's first Antarctic expedition, on the sea-ice beneath Cape Crozier. Here in the dark days of July this extraordinary bird lays its one egg upon the ice.
In the winter of 1911 a very brave journey was made to this spot by a party of Captain Scott's officers, consisting of Dr. Wilson, Lieut. Bowers and Mr. Cherry-Garrard. The experiences of this little band were so terrible that it is remarkable they ever returned to tell of them. ”