PECULIAR PENGUINS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 69, 22 March 1941, Page 2 (Supplement)

PECULIAR PENGUINS.

Rightly did Walt Disney call one of his allly symphonies "Peculiar Penguins/'# for the penguin ia a most peculiar bird. One of these at the London Zoo has lately laid an egg. There is nothing peculiar in that, but it is the first time that visitors to the zoo have been able to see king penguins hatching out their cgrgs, and this Is peculiar to the extreme. They make no nest, but balance the egg on their webbed feet, and in this way keep it warm and Off the ground the whole five weeks'it ia hatching, When mother gets hungry (about every three days) the egg is rolled over on to father's feet, and thefe he stands like Patience on a m<HJuro«nt smJJing at jrrief, till mother cames back to relieve him. The mother penguin it the zoo na? been a most photographed bird of late standing coyly with Her head an one side and the egg just showing through the feathers. Her portrait remindedi as of the delightful compliment oncc |»id to an Antarctic explorer by a penguin.

H« was standing among a crowd of the-, grotesque birds and watching will amusement how a penguin courts hilove bj' offering her a nice round stone Suddenly one of them came hobbling to where he stood, and with a dramatic gefitiuc deposited a similar stone at his feet!