GREETING OF THE PENGUINS

Evening Star, Issue 22514, 5 December 1936, Page 14

GREETING OF THE PENGUINS

I was reading a book on the Arctic, and among the many new and interesting things I learned was that penguins, the amiable and good-natured Polar birds, greet each other hi' passing in the literal sense of the word, writes Franz Molnar, the famous .Hungarian playwright, in the ‘ Neue Zurcher Zeitung,’ Zurich. These birds have funny habits. They disport themseves and go for walks in groups, without goal or purpose, just like humans. In front of the group trips its leader. If another group of penguins happens to be coming from the opposite direction both leaders step forward. The first bows his head and turns it quickly in a circle, whereupon tho second either does the same, and then all ,is well and both groups continue each in its own direction, or he does not reply in the same manner. The first leader then repeats his greeting a second and a third time, and if there is still no response it means that the second group belongs to a different species of the penguin race, whereupon a battle ensues, the birds belabouring ono another with their stiff and bony little wings. At bottom the penguin is a sweettempered bird .which is not a hit afraid of man and approaches him in a friendly way, although 100 years may pass sometimes before a ■ group of. penguins

sees a human being. Explorers believe that the birds probably mistake man for one of their own kin, sincere, too, walks in an erect; posture and seems to be behaving like themselves. v’R ' has happened, however,' that penguins. have attacked men: a member of the Shackletdn expedition' was handled.' quite roughly by a group of birds, bince then it is customary for explorers who have to cross icefields to march in'groups and, if they meet promenading penguins, one man steps'forward, bows' his head,' and turns it in a circle. The leader of the birds does the same, and each then goes his own way. To my mind there is something pathetic in the .fact that these ancieht and solitary birds of the Arctic have adopted the gesture, of greeting which is an abbreviated expression of an idea, although, of' course, we may he ignorant of its deeper meaning. At any rate, it is one of. a'thousand little signs that a bond of fraternity links men and beasts and plants" and - all creation. Searching further we may discover in this little story, a symbol: the marvellous adaptability of mail. Afraid of the bird which, may become quarrelsome and unpleasant, and realising that ho can protect himself by bowing his .head, he does not,hesitate to meet the creature as he would meet his fellowman. , In the immense dreary- icefields of the Arctic man .sheds, his hypocrisy ; ana reveals his true self.