1. CORNER OF A ROOKERY OF ADELIE PENGUINS. YOUNG ARE SEEN IN EACH NEST.

young glutton, burying its head almost entire in the beak of the adult, searches for it.

In general, the broods abandon the nests a few at a time. The young now keep together in small groups, moving about, splashing in the midst of the reddish mud, with which they are covered from head to foot. The very disagreeable odor which comes from them leaves some doubt as to the good hygiene of these animals. Each group is confided to the care of some adults which carefully watch over all these noisy and already inquisitive young creatures. One side of the rookery ends in a cliff overhanging the sea or a ravine, some adults standing there as sentinels. Woe to the curious little one that ventures too near the dangerous spot; the watchman, with a light stroke of the beak or of the wing, reminds the rash bird of the duty of obedience and of the need of returning to the ranks.

In February the young, little by little, change the down for the plumage which they wear for a year or until the next molt. They are now distinguished from the adults by the absence of the white iris, also by the color of the throat, which is white instead of black, the line of white and black crossing the cheek below the eye. It is not until the next molting at the end of a year, in February or March, that they take on the plumage of the adult. At the end of February the young can care for themselves; they leave the rookeries and ramble in groups along the coast. From day to day their number diminishes. They leave in March, going northward to dwell on the open sea. The parents have done their work. Having labored for their offspring during four months, they must now think of themselves. Winter approaches, they must form the new habit which will enable them to endure bad weather. They go to rest on the snow or in some crevice of the rocks, sheltered from the prevailing winds. They remain there in the same place, without moving, during the entire molting season; that is to say, for 20 days. They are compelled to live on their reserve fat. They become unsightly, resembling birds poorly stuffed, eaten by insects.

At the end of March, when the molting is over, the birds in small flocks gradually leave their city, to which they will again return at the close of winter, after seven months' absence.

Finally, the last species, which, like the Adelie, is distributed over the whole extent of the Antarctic continent, is the Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes Forsteri), a bird of large size, sometimes reaching a height of 1 meter 10 centimeters and a weight of 40 kilograms. It is a very beautiful bird; its head is jet black; on each side of the head a band of golden yellow diminishes gradually toward the neck and ventral regions; the back is bluish-gray, the beak to the base of the mandibles purplish-rose. The Emperor does not leave the polar regions, where the birds are found in small groups

on the icebergs. If two groups happen to meet, the leaders bow to each other, lowering their beaks on their breasts; remaining in this position, they hold a long discourse; then, compliments having been exchanged, they raise their heads and describe a great circle with their beaks. They act in the same way toward men, who generally have great difficulty in understanding this mimicry, obliging the penguin to begin over again.

The habits of this penguin are very different from those of the birds that we have just considered. The mode of reproduction is very peculiar, and has been ably studied by Mr. Wilson, naturalist of the Discovery expedition. It occurs in the dead of winter, in the middle of the polar night, at the end of June in cold that may reach 50 C. below zero when the Emperors gather together near the continent, on a solid iceberg, to lay a single egg. There are no prepara

tions, no nest.

To keep the egg off the ice, the penguin places it on his feet, held between his legs, protected by a fold of skin covered with feathers at the base of the abdomen. As the incubation lasts nearly two months, the birds, of which not many are engaged in brooding, pass the egg to one another in turn. At the beginning of September the young is hatched. As there is only one chick to ten or so adults, and as every one of the latter wishes to brood, there is much jostling and struggling to get possession of the little one, that brings upon the poor creature unintentional wounds, sometimes causing its death.

Toward the end of October migration toward the north takes place, the birds letting themselves be carried off on fragments of ice broken from the iceberg; the chicks, still covered with down, are carried by their parents. In January they lose this down and from this time on they provide for themselves.

While the young live on the outskirts of the icebergs the adults return south to seek solid ice on which they go to molt, then in the month of June they come together again, and the cycle that we have just briefly described begins anew.

We have been obliged to pass very rapidly over the study of these birds, of which we have been able to give only a slight sketch.

But it is easy to understand that the Antarctic region possesses a distinct avian fauna, characterized by several very remarkable zoological types, and presenting very nearly the same composition throughout its extent. Different members of this fauna extend to very variable distances over certain adjacent lands, in such a way as to exert a greater or less influence on the characteristics of the ornithological population of neighboring regions.