FOR THE LITTLE ONES

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 134, 8 June 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

FOR THE LITTLE ONES

FLIPPY AND CHIPPY.

TALE OF TWO LITTLE PENGUINS.

My Dear Little Friends, — Perhaps soma of you have read in the "Star" reports of the doings of the men at the South Pole. Many -will remember that there are no Eskimos or polar bears there, but penguins roam the ice floes and "build their nests where strong winds have swept the snow from some rocky region. Today I am going to tell you a story about Flippy, a penguin. Flippy had liis first glance at this world about six months ago, and peeped at the black rock about him, and at the enow, not so very far away, from over the edges of his shell. For quite a while he was very helpless, but as his feathers grew longer, and he gained more strength, lie discovered that he could run quite well, and often went scampering away to be pursued by his parents and a dozen other adult penguins, who were anxious for his safety. Indeed, he remembered very well how his brother, who was hatched almost at the same time as himself, had been trampled to death by a crowd of other penguins anxious to have the privilege of bringing him up. When the real summer came the penguins trooped down to the ■water's edge, and Flippy was invited to take a plunge. Squawk! Squawk! Squawk I he cried, as his parents endeavoured to push him over the edge of the ice, and with a terrible scurry he dodged them and scampered away up the ice as hard as he could go. But mother and father penguin were determined that their .son should learn to swim, and the next time Flippy went near the water's edge they pushed him in. Down, down, he sank, splashing and .gasping, to come to the surface in a minute coughing the water out of his mouth. Hie parents were close at hand, and he was given his first swimming lesson. Like little boys and girls he did not like his firet experience in the water, but after several lessons he discovered how really easy it is to swim, and began to enjoy frollicking in the waves. The .other baby penguins had by this time also learnt to swim, and he challenged many of these to wrestling matches. He would induce a comrade near the edge of the ice, then, frisking about him, he would give him a push and tumble him into the water. Others, however, would join in ithe sport, and quite often Flippy would be pushed in, too. He would romp with the other penguins in the water ■until a_ sheet of ice -went floating past, then he would swim towards it, board it, and go sailing merrily away to dive off when his raft reached the mouth of the hay, and swim back to await another piece of ice that would take him lor a sail. One day he and his chum Chippy went -for a walk away from the other penguins, and when they rounded a bend in the ice they saw a very queer thing. Really it was a ship that they saw, but as neither of them. had ever seen a ship before they were very curious to know all about it. "Let us go closer," suggested Flippy. '.'Rather," agreed Chippy, and the pair waddled down to examine the hoat with its ropes and anchors. Suddenly a man stepped out from behind a hummock .of ice, and the pair were even more amazed. Flippy bowed to Chippy (penguins always do this before talking), and said, "This as a queer bird we see." . Chippy bowed hack. "Let us address him and ask him where he cones from." The pair approached, and the man stood still, watching them closely. Flippy waddled up quite dose to the man, and, bowing, spoke- most politely in penguin language. The man addressed looked very amazed, and made some queer sounds that neither Flippy or Chippy had ever heard before. '* He ■» •* v « r y r «de bird/' »aid Flippy to Chippy, bowing once more. But I'll speak to him again, and maybe he'Jl answer me." Once more -the man was addressed -wfth the same polite bowing, and once more the penguins were disgusted at his lack of manners, so instead of tarrying longer they turned about and stalked off to tell their friends of the rude being they had met upon the ice, how they hcLd /lio r,< , addressed him, and how he had not even the manners io speak in *JS^^^ return. •***^