ANIMAL LIFE IN THE ANTARTIC.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXII, 10 May 1912, Page 3

ANIMAL LIFE IN THE ANTARTIC.

MR PONTING'S OBSERVATIONS

When Mr H. G. Ponting, the photographer of the Scott Expedition, was interviewed in Sydney, he made some highly interesting statements about animal life in the Antarctic, THE WAYS OF PENGUINS. First of all, he talked about the penguins. "The Adelie penguins are without exception the funniest creatures you ever saw," he said. The Emporor penguins move slow and dignified in their movements; the Adelie was very active, and could get over the ice as fast as a man, not by running so much as by slithering along. When a penguin took to the water he parcelled himself up in a neat, sharp diving attitude, and mare as pretty a sweep or gyration through the surf as could be imagined. In getting out of the water 'he made toward a sloping face of rock, and bounded upwards like a cat, from the top of the wave, landing always on his feet. The penguins have a very quaint way of courting. In the season, when their fancy lightly turns to thoughts of lovo, the males strut about in all tho finery of their best plumage. When one comes across a female that takes his eye, he goes up to her and strokes her gently down1 the back with his beak. Often the maiden is shy, and turns her head away,l and pretends to take no notice. Then the male walks solemnly off, brings a stone in his beak, and lays it at hor feet. Stones are the legal tender in Penguin Land. Tho penguins make their nests of stones, and tho notion of the male is a sort of gentle hint that "Barkis is willinV that she should skare his nest. If she makes no acknowledgement of the first stone, he brings another, and still smother, and another, till there is a regular mound at the female's feet, and she breaks down under the weight of all these attentions, and off they go on their honeymoon, looking very happy. VORACIOUS KILLER WHALKS. The voraciousness of the killer whales is well known. They are veiled the tigers of tho sea. Mr Vonting saw one fight —a very unequal battle —between a seal and these demons of the deep, which ho described as the most stirring incident ns showing the strong maternal love in animals for their offspring that he lias ever seen lor heard of in his life. This is Mr Ponting's story:—"Tho killer is an animal which attacks with most cruel and extraordinary pertinacity. A shark is a pet in comparison. They hunt the seals as they lie sleeping on the edge of the ice. If they can't i reach them from the water they make a concerted attack from underneath. Half dozen of them will get under the ice and endeavor to ease it up and smash it, and tumble the seal into the water. If they succeed in doing this the seal is ravenously torn to pieces. But it is a very sleepy seal that gets caught like this. Sometimes, however, the shock to his nervous system is so great that he seems to get paralysed with fear, and before he can scuttle away is grabbed by the killers. "Once I say eight killer whales chasing a seal," Mr Ponting said, "and saw the latter jump out of the sea on to the ice, and, instead of bolting away for deai life, as the seal usually does, it turned and faced its enemies. We were at a loss to understand why it should remain on the brink of the ice at the jaws of death, till presently we noticed that there was a young seal in the I water, and in the -hour of danger the mother would not desert it. Just as the killers got within a few yards of the calf, the old seal leapt into the water over their heads to draw them away. They whirled round to follow her, but she managed to elude them, and to get in front of them once more, and make another effort to get the younpr seal to a place of safety. The dogged way that she fought, this exhibition of hopeless courage, won our admiration ai-d sympathy, and was a fine exemplification of the strong love in animals for their young. SEAL LIFE. "The seal life is of tremendous interest. I got some most remarkable pictures of the seals boring holes in the ico with their teeth by means of a sawing motion. I also got a lot of pictures showing the mother seals gambolling with their young, just as cats play with kittens, and of them teaching the young idea how to swim. When a seal is about a fortnight old it is taken by the mother to the water's edge. She then jumps in and swims about to show how it is done, and endeavors to coax the little ones to follow suit. After a lot of persuasion the young seal takes a header, and comes up with a most startled expression on its face, and when it reaches terra firma again wants to run away home. But the lesson has to be learnt, and so the young seal is made to go into the water again, and it is not long before he becomes an expert swimmer, and shows a preference for the water."