THE PENGUIN AT HOME IS A DROLL AND CURIOUS BIRD.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20276, 10 April 1934, Page 8

THE PENGUIN AT HOME IS A DROLL AND CURIOUS BIRD.

To-day’s Special Article

The Monarch of the Antarctic Becomes the Explorer 9 s Companion.

Lincoln Ellsworth’s first sight of penguins in the Ross Sea ice pack, which the explorer described ■ • •••-- ••• recently by radio as he made his way toward the Antarctic Continent, brought him just as much amusement as a glimpse of these droll and delightful little companions of solitude brings to other men who see them. There is no creature in the world which for unconscious humour and prankishness can equal the Adelie penguin of the Antarctic, writes Russell Owen. This writer also first saw penguins in the Ross pack, on the first Byrd expedition. The ship was moving slowly, in warm sunshine under a cloudless sky, through a rift in the wide expanse of ice. On a floe alongside there popped up two tiny creatures, which stretched themselves upward, wildly waved their Rippers a moment, and then stood as if amazed by the sudden apparition of the ship. ,

STARING A MOMENT they turned to each other and waggled their heads up and down in evident excitement, as if talking it over. To get a closer view, they waddled ahead, flippers outstretched, in their odd Charlie Chaplinesque walk, until they reached the edge of the floe. There they stopped again, their heads bobbing for all the world like the heads of two persons engaged in- the most exciting conversation. And both of them turned toward the ship and squawked what was undoubtedly some ribald comment or defiance.

had been insulted. Then they made a dive for it, got tangled up in their harness and started to fight among themselves. Meanwhile, the penguin walked noisily away, and then suddenly quietened down, watching with head on one side, the howling dogfight it had started. “ Just see what I did,” it seemed to say with cocky pride. The Powerful Emperors.

They kept up with the ship, for .they can travel fast when they get down on their white shirt-fronts and skate along the surface, using their flippers for propulsion. As they reached the edge of the floe they would dive overboard, to plop out of the water at the next cake of ice and stop again for observation. For several minutes they moved abreast of the ship, scrambling from one cake to another, sometimes running upright, sometimes taxi-ing on their bellies for greater speed, until their curiosity was satisfied and they dropped behind to talk over the strange visitor. Two Ross Sea Types. There are two types of penguins in the Ross Sea, the small Adelie, which is the lively and amusing member of the species, with black coat and white breast and queer tail like an appendage of furry feathers, and the big Emperor, weighing eighty or ninety pounds, being about four feet high and having a rich black head, bluish grey back and wings, a lemon-yellow breast which shines like satin, and a patch of orange on the neck and lower bill. The Adelie is a quick and restless bird, but the Emperor is as slow and stately as his name implies. Both of them walk upright as a rule, but travel faster on their smooth breast feathers; they swim with a zigzagging speed that is incredible The Emperor penguin goes through the water fast enough, despite its size, to hurl. himself from it several feet into the air and land on the raised edge of ice. Frequently he overshoots the edge by a foot or more. Only the sea leopard and, perhaps, the killer whale, are fast enough to catch either the Adelie or the Emperor in the water. On shore Adelies can keep up, by sliding, with a slowly trotting dog team. They go scooting across the snow, using their flippers, and when they reach a point at which the surface falls off a little before them, they sail through the air for a short distance as if taking off on skis. Their lack of fear is one of the things which gives them their charming curiosity. It is astonishing to see a little Adelie walk up to a dog team that is lying down and slap at the dogs with its flippers to the accompaniment of a stream of penguin profanity. The writer saw this happen several times, the dogs being so amazed at the effrontery of the creature that they let it go away before deciding that they

The only real enemy of the penguin is the fast : swimming sea leopard, a species of seal. When the birds line up at the edge of the ice to dive overboard, they are sometimes afraid that a sea leopard may be around. They talk it over and hesitate and have an uncomfortable time, until one member of the group decides that something has to be done, and sidles up behind a companion whom he immediately pushes overboard. Then they all look over the edge if the penguin comes up or gives other evidence of being alive, they all dive

The Emperors are powerful creatures and can deal a savage blow with their flippers. One of the strongest men in the party decided to catch an Emperor. He was driven off time and again by vicious blows of the beak and flippers, and even when he wrapped both arms around the bird it struck him so hard that he was forced to let go. Finally, in desperation, he made a flying football tackle, knocked the Emperor off his feet, and for five minutes there was one of the fastest scraps between an 801 b bird and a 1801 b man that was ever seen. Winded, scratched and pummelled, the man eventually won and picked up his prize with its head and flippers tucked under his arms. But even then the penguin struggled When he let the bird go he would have shaken hands if the penguin had known what the gesture meant. As it was, the Emperor shook its feathers into place, preened itself, disdainfully walked to the edge of the ice and went overboard. Its attitude suggested that it thought explorers frightfully rude. A number of Emperors were caught in the second year of the expedition and kept in a pit dug in the snow, in the hope that some of them might be brought back to the United States. But on the homeward voyage they all died. The Adelie penguins spend about four months on the pack ice and eight months on the mainland, where they occupy large rookeries. Their nests are built exclusively of pebbles, which they filch from one another. Pebbles are the cause of many a fight in the rookeries. Members of the second Scott expedition, stationed at Cape Adare, where there is a large area of exposed rock, watched the Adelies come in from the pack to take up their abode on land. The birds marched by the thousands, in columns a mile long, and soon their rookery was filled with a noisy throng, busily engaged in courtship and nest building. It has been estimated that some of the penguin rookeries contain half a million, or even more, birds.