CHAPTER XLVPENGUINS
(Some Notes by James Murray, Biologist to the Expedition)
Though so much has been written about them, penguins always excite fresh interest in every one who sees them for the first time.
There is endless interest in watching them; the dignified Emperor, dignified in spite of his clumsy waddle, going along with his wife (or wives) by his side, the very picture of a successful, self-satisfied, unsuspicious countryman, and gravely bowing like a Chinaman before a yelping dog, and also the little undignified matter-of-fact Adelie, minding his own business in a most praiseworthy manner. Often they behave with apparent stupidity, but sometimes they show a good deal of intelligence. Their resemblance to human beings is always noticed, partly because they walk erect, but they also have many other human traits. They are the civilised nations of the Antarctic regions, and their civilisation, if much simpler than ours, is in some respects higher and more worthy of the name.
But there is also a good deal of human nature in them. As in the human race, their gathering in colonies does not show any true social instinct; each penguin is in the rookery for his own ends, there is no thought of the general good. You might exterminate an Adelie rookery with the exception of one bird, and he would not mind so long as you left him alone.
Some suggestion of unselfishness does appear in the nesting habits of the Adelie, and like men the Adelieshave the unpleasant habit of stealing and the pleasant one of not making eating the prime business in life. Both Emperors and Adelies, when nesting is off their minds, show a legitimate curiosity, and having got into good condition they leave the sea and go off in parties for weeks, apparently to see the country.
We saw the Emperor penguins only as a summer visitor, when having finished nesting and having fed up and become glossy and beautiful, they came up out of the sea, apparently to have a good time before moulting. While the Adelies were nesting the Emperors came in numbers to inspect the camp, the two kinds usually paying no attention to each other unless an Adelie thought an Emperor came too close to her nest, when an odd unequal quarrel followed. Little impudence, pecking and scolding, and being more than able to hold her own with the tongue, but knowing the value of discretion whenever the Emperor raised his flipper.
The Emperors were very inquisitive and would come a long way to see a motor-car or a man, and when out on these excursions the leader kept his party together by a long shrill squawk. Distant parties saluted in this way.
The first party to arrive inspected the boat, and then crossed the lake to the camp, but when they discovered the dogs all other interests were swallowed up. After the discovery crowds of Emperors came every day, and from the manner in which they went straight to the kennels one was tempted to believe that the fame of the dogs had been noised abroad.
As regards meetings, Emperors were very ceremonious, whether meeting other Emperors, men, or dogs. They came up to a party of strangers in a straggling procession, some big aldermanic fellow leading. At a respectful distance they halted, and the old male waddled close upand bowed gravely until his head almost touched his breast. With his head still bowed he made a long speech in a muttering manner, and having finished his speech he still kept his head bowed for a few seconds for politeness sake, and then raising it he described with his bill as large a circle as the joints of his neck would allow, and finally looked into our faces to see if we understood. If we had not, as usually was the case, he tried again.
He was infinitely patient with our stupidity, but his followers were not so patient with him, and presently they would become sure that he was making a mess of it. Then another male would waddle forward and elbow the first Emperor aside as if to say, "I'll show you how it ought to be done," and went again through the whole business.
Their most solemn ceremonies were used towards the dogs, and three old fellows were seen calmly bowing and speaking at the same time to a dog, which was yelping and straining at its chain in the desire to get at them.
Left to themselves the Emperor penguins seemed perfectly peaceable, but if they did use their flippers they could strike forward or backward with equal ease.
They seemed to regard men as penguins like themselves, but if a man walked too fast among them or touched them they were frightened and ran away, only fighting when closely pressed. As one slowly retreated, fighting, he had a ludicrous resemblance to a small boy being bullied by a big one, his flipper being raised in defence towards his foe as he made quick blows at the bully. It was well to keep clear of that flipper, for it was very powerful and might easily break an arm.
Many of the stupid acts of both kinds of penguins are doubtless to be traced to their very defective sight in air, and to this defect one must ascribe the fact thatwhen they fought the blows from their bills always fell short.
The Emperor can hardly be said to migrate, but nevertheless he travels a good deal, and the meaning of some of his journeys remain a mystery.
On journeys they often travel many miles walking erect, when they get along at a very slow shuffle, making only a few inches at each step. In walking thus they keep their balance by means of their tails, which forms a tripod with the legs. When, however, they are on a suitable snow surface, they progressed rapidly by tobogganing, a very graceful motion, when they made sledges of their breasts and propelled themselves by their powerful legs, balancing, and perhaps increasing their speed, by means of their wings.
Eight of them visited the car one day, sledging swiftly towards us, and one obstinate old fellow, who was not going to be hurried away by anybody, had to see the car bearing down upon him before he was persuaded to hustle.
The Adelie is always comical. He pops out of the water with startling suddenness, like a jack-in-the-box, alights on his feet, shakes his tail, and toddles off about his business. He always knows where he wants to go and what he wants to do, and it is difficult to turn him aside from his purpose.
In the water the Adelie penguins move rapidly and circle in the same way as a porpoise or dolphin, for which they are easily mistaken at a little distance. On level ice or snow they can get along about as fast as a man at a smart walk, but they find even a small crack a serious obstruction, and pause and measure with the eye one of a few inches before very cautiously hopping over it. They flop down and toboggan over any opening morethan a few inches wide. Very rarely they swim in the water like ducks, and on these infrequent occasions their necks are below the surface and their heads are just showing.
The Adelie shows true courage in the breeding-season, for after he has learned to fear man he remains to defend the nest against any odds. When walking among the nests one is assailed on all sides by powerful bills, and for protection we wore long felt boots reaching well above the knee. Some of the clever ones, however, realised that they were wasting their efforts on the boots, and coming up behind would seize the skin above the boot and hang on tight, beating with their wings.
Some birds became so greatly interested in the camp that they wanted to nest there. One bird (we believe it was always the same one) could not be kept away and used to come every day, until at last he was carried away by Brocklehurst, a wildly struggling, unconquerable being.
The old birds enjoy play, while the young ones are solely engaged in satisfying the enormous appetites they have when growing. While theNimrodwas frozen in the pack some dozens of them disported themselves in a sea-pool alongside. They swam together in the duck fashion, then at a squawk from one they all dived and came up at the other side of the pool.
Early in October they began to arrive at the rookery, singly or in pairs. The first to come were the males, and they at once began to scrape up the frozen ground to make hollows for nests, and to collect stones for the walls with which they surrounded them.
An Adelie calling for a Mate after commencing the Nest.(See page 242)
An Adelie calling for a Mate after commencing the Nest.(See page 242)
When the rookery is pretty well filled, and the nest-building is in full swing, the birds have a busy and anxious time. To get enough suitable small stones is a matter of difficulty, and may involve long journeys for each single stone, so the temptation is too strong for some of the birds, and they become habitual thieves. The bearing of the thief, however, clearly shows that he knows that he is doing wrong, for very different is his furtive look, even after he is quite out of danger of pursuit, from the expression of the honest penguin coming home with a hard-earned stone.
A thief, sitting on its own nest, was stealing from an adjacent nest, whose honest owner was also at home but looking unsuspectingly in another direction. Casually the latter turned his head and caught the thief in the very act, whereupon the culprit dropped the stone and pretended to be busy picking up an infinitesimal crumb from the neutral ground. Undoubtedly then the penguin has a conscience, at least a human conscience, that is the fear of being found out.
This stone-gathering is a very strong part of the nesting instinct, and even if at a late stage the birds lost their eggs or their young, they began again, in a half-hearted way, to heap up stones. Unmated birds occupied the fringe of the rookery, and amused themselves piling and stealing till the chicks began to hatch out.
After the two eggs were laid the males—who always seemed to be in the majority—used to do most of the work, and judging from certain signs it would seem that some of the birds never left their nests to feed during the whole period of incubation. Many birds lost their mates through the occasional breaking loose of a dog, and these birds could not leave their nests.