Everyone dresses for dinner

Press, 7 December 1981, Page 20

Everyone dresses for dinner

Will the penguin census in McMurdo Sound this summer turn up unexpected details about the leading citizens, of that chunk of Antarctica which is claimed by New-. Zealand? Inquisitive as we are, we already know a good deal. Penguins have a clear class structure, with emperors and kings at the top; they invariably eat fish on Fridays (and every other day); they put the rest of us to shame by always dressing for dinner. . Not unlike ourselves, they mate with a good deal of affection, sometimes after a mixture of brawling and vigorous courtship. They show strong powers of collective defence against intruders; but they fight readily among themselves, especially when the boundaries of their little domestic plots are in dispute. Every penguin household has a refrigerator; almost none, as far as we know, have any other electrical appliances. Without telephones or television they still manage to fill their days and nights, and keep up with the colony’s gossip. Their menfolk are often better house-broken than ourselves, taking duty turns at hatching and rearing which would bring joy to a feminist’s heart. Perhaps it is rather naughty of the D.S.I.R. to propose to inspect all this busy penguin suburbia and to become voyeur census-takers of the air. The justification is surely adequate: that by checking on penguin numbers (and standards of living) scientists will, have a fair guide to the

general level of food supplies, and hazards — natural and man-made — in the Ross Sea area. Cameras and aeroplanes have, much to commend them-in the awkward business of taking a census. Applied on the New Zealand mainland, the' results might eliminate a good deal of the, errors — genuine or deliberate — which can creep in when people (or penguins) are. expected to answer awkward or intimate questions about themselves. Instead of asking us our incomes, aerial “censors” could just count the swimming pools (every penguin has one), and the boats and caravans parked in the back yards. Instead of asking religious affiliation, just count the cars in the church car-parks on Sunday mornings. Instead of asking us how far we managed to get at school, watch what time the blinds go up in the mornirig. It takes, real ingenuity to find ways of lying late abed each day. With penguins, the estimation of intelligence is easier: in the harsh world of Antarctica, only smart penguins survive. Let us hope the aerial census-takers find the well-dressed Adelies and Emperors of the Ross Dependency are flourishing, even if very few of them have television sets or flush toilets. On average, they are probably a lot smarter than we are; they deserve to have their homes, and their world, left in the condition in which they like to find them.