Emperor penguin

“ In contradistinction to their calm and self-controlled relative, the Emperor penguin, these active little creatures have an extremely fiery temperament, which makes them fly into a passion at the slightest interference with their affairs ”

“ The emperor penguin is very difficult to kill; he will live after his skull has been most hopelessly smashed; the best way to put an end to them is to pith them. Six of us one day set out to capture one alive, and so strong was the bird that five with difficulty kept their hold, and, after he was bound with strong cords and nautical knots, he flapped his flippers and released himself. ”

“ Bird life on sea and land is fairly abundant, the most common forms being the skua gull, snow petrels, and the various species of penguins. The penguins are specially adapted for an aquatic life, and depend for their food entirely on marine animals. The largest species, the emperor penguin, inhabits the most southerly coast known on the edge of the Great Barrier, and there it breeds at mid-winter, very interesting specializations of structure and habit making this apparently impossible feat practicable. ”

“ They have no quills in their wings, which are as rigid as the flippers of a cetacean, and utterly useless for flight, though they move freely at the shoulder-joint, forming most efficient paddles, and are usually worked alternately with a rotatory motion. They make no nests, and lay a single egg, which is tended by both birds, and the female takes charge of the young for nearly 12 months. The emperor penguin is Aptenodytes patagonica, and the king penguin A. longirostris. ”

“ Fred asked how large the ordinary penguin is.
"There are several varieties of these birds," said his informant, "the largest being the Emperor Penguin, which weighs twenty-five or thirty pounds, and I have known them to tip the scale at very nearly forty. The old birds are so tough and fishy that a dog won't touch them, but the chickens are good eating. I have tried the eggs, but didn't like 'em, as they resembled a hen's egg cooked in lamp-oil. Penguins only go on shore during the breeding season ”

“ Nevertheless, anyone who sees a living penguin for the first time will always be attracted and interested, both by the dignified Emperor penguin, with his three feet of stature, and by the bustling little Adelie. ”

“ Take it all in all, I do not believe anybody on earth has a worse time than an Emperor penguin. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Other penguins are all very much smaller than the Emperor, weighing about 8 to 14 lbs., the most plentiful and characteristic species is the Black-throated penguin (Pygoscelis adeliæ) . This species is common to every Antarctic seaboard that explorers have yet visited. The Scotia naturalists estimated that, on Ferrier Peninsula alone, which was for two or three miles simply alive with these birds, there were not less than two millions. Altogether, in Laurie Island, South Orkneys and its off-lying islets, no less than fourteen rookeries were known, besides the Ferrier Peninsula rookery. ”

“ In the majority of the chicks the down is uniformly dark and sooty, but here and there, in progeny of quite normal parents, one may find nestlings of so pale a grey as to be almost silvery white, with blackish heads, possibly a reversion to an earlier type, and, at any rate, suggestive of the young of the Emperor penguin, which perhaps represents the oldest stock of all. ”

“ Penguins are of several species, the largest and rarest being what are called emperor penguins, and stand about four feet high. I say stand, because they are so built that walking on one end or resting statue-like on their tails suits them best. ”

“ There are two kinds of Antarctic penguins—the little Adélie with his blue-black coat and his white shirt-front, weighing 16 lbs., an object of endless pleasure and amusement, and the great dignified Emperor with long curved beak, bright orange head-wear and powerful flippers, a personality of 61⁄2 stones. Science singles out the Emperor as being the more interesting bird because he is more primitive, possibly the most primitive of all birds. Previous to the Discovery Expedition nothing was known of him save that he existed in the pack and on the fringes of the continent. ”

“ The icy water, Murphy thought, might preserve them for years. The hills, away from the sea, seem a surprising place for the graveyard of such aquatic birds as the penguins, but it correlates with another peculiarity of their mental makeup. They like to nest on high land, or at least far from the sea. The blind instinctiveness of much penguin behavior is well shown by these birds when there is no high land on their nesting island. Then they may nest so far from the beach on which they land that they are close to the water on the other side. ”

“ They carry their heads high, with their wings drooping like two arms, and, as their tails project from their body in a line with the legs, the resemblance to a human figure is very striking, and would be apt to deceive the spectator at a casual glance or in the gloom of the evening. The royal penguins which we met with on Kerguelen's Land were rather larger than a goose. The other kinds are the macaroni, the jackass, and the rookery penguin. These are much smaller, less beautiful in plumage, and different in other respects. ”

“ Penguins in general, and you my personal friends, would not a world framed for ourselves have been better? a world with one low mountain bathed in sunlight,—a tiny, leafy plain bordering the sea, carpeted with flowers, and shaded by fruit-bearing trees, in which a score of social birds might build their nests—birds decked with gay plumage and bursting with song, unlike the poor Penguin whose lines you are now reading? ”

“ Their feet, like those of the auks, are placed so far back that the body is quite upright when the bird is standing on the ground, a position which renders their gait uncommonly slow and awkward, but greatly facilitates their movements in the water. When at sea and fishing, the penguin comes to the surface for the purpose of breathing with such a spring, and dives again so instantaneously, that at first sight no one can be sure that it is not a fish leaping for sport. ”

“ Presently we stopped, lowered the surf-boat and dispatched a crew ashore to bring off Douglas and Carr, and, if possible, secure some penguins for food, as our preserved stores required the most careful shepherding, by reason of the lengthy cruise ahead of us. The doctor and I, on landing, took sticks and proceeded up the hill as if for a wager. The penguin can waddle along at a considerable pace on level ground; but up a gradient he is clumsy and handicapped, and a man can beat him easily. ”

“ The type of penguin found here is a very handsome bird, decked out in rather gay colors, having a jet black head, bluish-gray back and wings, a yellow breast and bright spot of orange on the neck, and an orange-colored lower bill. As though proud of his multicolored dress he walks with slow and majestic step. His height is about four feet and his average weight eighty-five pounds. He makes free use of his voice which is loud and shrill. Whenever a group of penguins see an object that excites their curiosity they will stand around it in a circle and gaze at it intently. ”

“ They seldom come ashore except in the breeding season, and then they nestle together, three or four in one hole, which they dig in the downs as deep as those of rabbits, and the ground is so full of them, that one is liable almost at every step to sink into them up to the knees. They feed entirely on fish, yet their flesh has not that rank fishy taste which is so common in sea-fowl, but is extraordinarily well tasted. Penguin, the name of this bird, is not derived from the Latin pinguedo, fatness, as the Dutch author of this voyage would have it, and therefore spells the word pinguin. ”

“ These birds, in fact, fly through the water, as others do through the air, but they do not look like birds at all, but much more like seals; and indeed the whole shape of a penguin is so much like that of a seal that one might almost mistake him for one, if it were not for his long, narrow bill. This, however, is only when he is in the water, and especially whilst swimming under it—if ever one has the chance of seeing him do that. When on land the bird presents a very different appearance. ”

“ The principle is illustrated in the diving birds, which are capable of shooting through the water with amazing velocity. While these birds live by catching fish in deep water far below the surface, they present many differences in outer appearance. In the collection at the London Zoölogical Gardens are black-footed penguins, guillemots, "darters," a puffin, and a cormorant. The penguin can not fly in the air, can not walk, but hops as if its feet were tied together ”

“ To the westward, at the head of Wasp Bay, is a small stream of excellent water, easily procured.
Some seal of the fur and hair species are still to be found on Kerguelen's Island, and sea elephants abound. The feathered tribes are discovered in great numbers. Penguins are very plenty, and of these there are four different kinds. The royal penguin, so called from its size and beautiful plumage, is the largest. The upper part of the body is usually gray, sometimes of a lilach tint; the under portion of the purest white imaginable. The head is of a glossy and most brilliant black, the feet also. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This was the first sight we had of a rookery of the little Adélie penguin. Hundreds of thousands of birds dotted the shore, and there were many thousands in the sea round the ship. As we came to know these rookeries better we came to look upon these quaint creatures more as familiar friends than as casual acquaintances. Whatever a penguin does has individuality, and he lays bare his whole life for all to see. He cannot fly away. ”

“ That, indeed, is the general simile which those who have seen these penguin birds in their antarctic dwelling-places make use of, in order to describe their appearance to more stay-at-home people, and the resemblance is increased by their sometimes walking one behind the other in single file, especially when coming up from the water to take their place on the eggs. They walk upon their toes alone, as do some of our own sea-birds—the puffin, for instance, and often the guillemot—but when standing sink down upon the shank—or tarsus, as it is called—that bone which corresponds with our own ankle. ”

“ The Falkland Islands, which lie far down off the western coast of South America, were once amongst the most popular breeding-resorts for various species of penguins, but “now,” says Professor Newton, “owing doubtless to the ravages of man, whose advent is always accompanied by massacre and devastation on an enormous scale, it does not nearly approach to what it is in other places—the habit of the helpless birds, when breeding, to congregate by hundreds and thousands in what are called penguin rookeries, contributing to the ease with which their slaughter can be effected. ”

“ He is very noisy, very mischievous, and very quarrelsome, and is not above stealing eggs from the nests of other birds. No doubt he clears the fields of a great number of grubs and slugs, but he does so much damage in the poultry-yard that he always goes the other way when he sees the farmer coming. His nest is built very cunningly of sticks and clay, and he surrounds it with sharp thorny twigs to keep out robbers like himself.
The Penguin
The Penguin is a kind of humpty-dumpty bird. He is far too fat to fly—the best he can do is to waddle. ”

“ The small gentoo penguins, like the King penguins, do not migrate and are few in numbers. They form diminutive colonies, which are always established on mounds amongst the tussock, or on the hill sides not far from the water. Their eggs, which are globular in shape, are about the best of the penguin eggs for eating, and if their nests are robbed the birds will generally lay again, although I think they could not lay more than four eggs. They build their nests of grass and plant leaves, and occasionally have been known to establish a fresh rookery after their first one has been robbed. ”

“ But learn, O Maël, that I have had a revelation that as a reward for their deliverance, the Penguin people will pay to the knight Kraken an annual tribute of three hundred fowls, twelve sheep, two oxen, three pigs, one thousand eight hundred bushels of corn, and vegetables according to their season; and that, moreover, the children who will come out of the dragon’s belly will be given and committed to the said Kraken to serve him and obey him in all things. If the Penguin people fail to keep their engagements a new dragon will come upon the island more terrible than the first. ”