HUMAN BIRDS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 85, 16 May 1914, Page 4

HUMAN BIRDS.

LOVES & BATTLES OF PENGUINS. More entertaining than most modern novelists' descriptions of humanity is Dr Levick's account of the "Antarctic Penguins," published by Mr Heinemann. Dr Levick's story, which he calls "a study of their social habits," and his illustrations, make a most interesting volume of natural history. The adelie penguin, which looks, at a distance, like a plump and intelligent little fellow in evening dress with a comical sense of his dignity, shows uncannily many human characteristics. "The consciousness of guilt always makes a penguin smooth his feathers and look small, while indignation has the opposite effect.''

A cock penguin, a fearless bird, will fight till he is either dead or exhausted over his mate or his young, but if another bird catches him stealing pebbles (they build their nests of pebbles) he will take a dreadful hammering without retaliation.

The wooing is done by a male bird offering a likely lady a pebble, with much politeness and many bows. If she accepts, he brings more and builds a home. If she does not, off he goes gravely with his gift to another lady. On one occasion a seaman sitting on the beach was approached by a penguin, who gently nibbled his trousers. The penguin then went off, but came back again at once—bowed most politely, and offered a pebble to the man. The author tells a comical story of the skua gulls, which are great thieves. The crew of an Antarctic ship were blasting ice with dynamite. A skua gull saw a detonator on the ice, and flew away with it. The detonator contained dynamite,. and . . . there was a

stampede on the part of the men to get from under the bird as it flew overhead."