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NATURE'S PARASITES--PUSS-MOTH CATERPILLAR AND ICHNEUMON-FLY--CATERPILLAR DEFENCES--WASPS AND THEIR VICTIMS--A SPIDER CAUGHT--ANTS THAT ARE OGRES--OSPREY AND EAGLE--GULLS AND SKUAS--PEEWIT AND BLACK-HEADED GULL 26

PENGUINS AND THEIR WAYS--UNCROWNED KINGS AND EMPERORS--INNOCENT ARMIES--SURF MISSED IN A BASIN--DARWIN AND THE PENGUIN--HARANGUING THE PENGUINNERY 39

WONDERFUL BIRDS'-NESTS--A CITY OF GRASS--BIRD WEAVERS AND TAILORS--BIRDS THAT MAKE POTTERY--EVOLUTION IN BIRD-ARCHITECTURE 49

BOWER-BIRDS AND GARDENER-BIRDS--HOW BIRDS SHOW OFF--A MALAY TRAP--CRIMSON COMPETITION--LOVE IN A TREE-TOP 59

BIZCACHAS AND BIZCACHERAS--INTERESTED NEIGHBOURS--A PROVIDENT MOTHER--PRAIRIE-DOGS AND RATTLESNAKES--OWLS THAT LIVE IN BURROWS 73

THE PUMA AND THE JAGUAR--TWO FIERCE ENEMIES--A STRANGE ATTACHMENT--A NIGHT ON THE PAMPAS--THE STORY OF MALDONADA 81

BEES AND ANTS--A ROBBER MOTH--ANTS THAT KEEP COWS AND SLAVES--ANTS THAT ARE HONEY-POTS--ANTS THAT SOW AND REAP 90

ANT ARMIES--A SNAKE'S PRECAUTION--WONDERFUL BRIDGES AND TUNNELS--MUSHROOM-GROWING ANTS 103

WHITE ANTS AND THEIR ARCHITECTURE--VERY WONDERFUL NESTS--"A PRISON AND A PALACE"--THE AARD VARK AND THE ANT-EATER--HOW ANTS ARE TRAPPED 118

AQUATIC ARCHERY--THE ANGLER-FISH AND THE CUTTLEFISH--INSECT ARTILLERY--EELS THAT GIVE ELECTRIC SHOCKS 130

PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE IN NATURE--SPIDERS THAT LOOK LIKE ANTS--A TRAP TO CATCH A BUTTERFLY--FALSE DEVOTEES--LEAF, STICK, AND GRASS-RESEMBLING INSECTS--"CUCULLUS NON FACIT MONACHUM" 141

SPIDERS AND THEIR WEBS--TRAP-DOOR SPIDERS--SPIDERS THAT EAT BIRDS--AQUATIC SPIDERS--BORN IN A DIVING-BELL 158

BEAVERS AND THEIR WORK--THE DAM AND THE POND--PRACTICE WITHOUT PRINCIPLES--A USEFUL TAIL--HOW BEAVERS CUT DOWN TREES 174

BEAVER "LODGES"--PRIMITIVE BEAVERS--INDIAN BEAVER-STORIES--AN ARABIAN NATURALIST 182

BEAVER-CANALS AND BEAVER-MEADOWS--ANTIQUITY OF BEAVER-WORKS--BEAVERS AND RAILWAY COMPANIES--WHITE BEAVERS 192

SEALS AND THEIR WAYS--BREEDING HABITS OF THE SEA-BEAR--SEA-ELEPHANTS--THE WALRUS AND THE POLAR BEAR--MATERNAL AFFECTION UTILISED--A WINTER SLEEP IN A SNOW-HOUSE--A DANGEROUS INTRUSION--BREAKFAST WITH AN ALLIGATOR--THE CROCODILE AND THE TROCHILUS 201

CROCODILES AND ALLIGATORS--DECEPTIVE APPEARANCES--AN UNFORTUNATE PECCARY--AN AMBUSH BY THE RIVER--LIFE AND DEATH STRUGGLES 215

JAGUARS AND PECCARIES--A FOREST DRAMA--STRENGTH IN NUMBERS--RETALIATION 223

THE GREAT CACHALOT OR SPERM-WHALE--HOW THE BULLS FIGHT--A BATTLE OF MONSTERS--GIANTS THAT EAT GIANTS--ENORMOUS CUTTLEFISH--THE KRAKEN A REALITY--DISAPPOINTED PROFESSORS 231

WHALES AND THEIR ENEMIES--THE THRESHER AND THE SWORD-FISH--SPORT AMONGST ANIMALS--THE SWORD-FISH AND ITS WAYS--CANNIBALISM IN NATURE--THE SHARK AND THE PILOT-FISH 243

THE SHARK'S ATTACH?--QUEER WAYS OF FISHING--HINTS FOR NAVAL WARFARE--FISH THAT DO FLY 256

THE SEA-SERPENT--MANY OCCASIONS ON WHICH IT HAS BEEN SEEN--CONSCIENTIOUS SCEPTICISM OF SCIENTIFIC MEN--A FIGHT BETWEEN MONSTERS--THE LARGEST LAND-SERPENT--SNAKES AND SNAKE-STONES--MEDICAL EVIDENCE--A COLONIAL REMEDY 267

HUNTING RUSES AMONGST THE HIGHER ANIMALS--WOLVES, FOXES, AND JACKALS--UNTEMPERED JUSTICE--GESTURE-LANGUAGE IN MEN AND DOGS--THE CAPE HUNTING-DOG AND HIS PREY 279

MAN AND BEAST IN THE FAR NORTH--TRAPS THAT ARE SEEN THROUGH--A NEW DISCOVERY--CUNNING OF ARCTIC FOXES--THE TRAPPER AND THE WOLVERINE 294

MAN-EATING ANIMALS--THE TIGER'S SLAVE--A SAVAGE LION-HUNT--WOLF-REARED CHILDREN--MEN AND APES--A SHAM GORILLA--UNPROHIBITED MURDER--A MONKEY'S MALISON 308

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THE ROMANCE OF THE ANIMAL WORLD

A MICROSCOPIC COMBAT--A SNAIL'S FRIENDSHIP--HERMIT-CRAB AND SEA-ANEMONE IN PARTNERSHIP--A CRAB IN AMBUSH--CRABS THAT EAT COCOANUTS.

Coming to the earthworms, which stand higher than the protozoa, though still very lowly, there seems little doubt that they are capable of forming and carrying out an intelligent purpose, since, when they pull leaves into their holes, they always catch hold of them by the proper part, so that they go down easily, and this they do even with the leaves of foreign trees, of which they can have had no previous experience. And if worms have experience, snails have both that and something better, or, at any rate, still more interesting to discover in a creature of this kind. "They appear," says Darwin, "susceptible of some degree of permanent attachment. An accurate observer--Mr. Lonsdale--informs me that he placed a pair of land-snails, one of which was weakly, in a small and ill-provided garden. After a short time the strong and healthy individual disappeared, and was traced, by its track of slime, over a wall and into an adjoining well-stocked garden. Mr. Lonsdale concluded that it had deserted its sickly mate; but after an absence of twenty-four hours it returned, and, apparently, communicated the result of its successful exploration, for both then started along the same track, and disappeared over the wall."

Both snails and worms, however, stand higher in the scale than do the sea-anemones, amongst which latter creatures--those flowers of ocean, rivalling with their pillared stalks and many-coloured living petals the proudest ones on earth--we yet find an instance of what is called commensalism--the living together, that is to say, in friendly community of two separate and often widely sundered species, each thereby obtaining some benefit for itself. The other party to the arrangement is in this instance a crab--the hermit-crab--that curious anchorite which by living and moving about in the disused shell of another creature escapes the many dangers which would otherwise threaten its soft and palatable body. Indeed, the association may almost be said to be between three, rather than two, different species, each of them belonging to a separate and well-marked division of the animal kingdom--viz. to the mollusca, the crustacea, and the coelentera respectively. As, however, the mollusc is represented by its house only, and not by itself--though, indeed, its house is structurally a part of it--it will be safest to consider the alliance as a dual rather than as a triple one. That the anemone establishes itself on the shell, not by mere chance, as might sometimes happen, did the crab allow of it, may be demonstrated in a very delightful way; for if, when it is attached to a stone, a hermit-crab should be placed in its vicinity, it will, after a time, abandon its post, and gliding, like a snail, to the hospitable portals of its friend's domain, proceed to attach itself there, much to the satisfaction of the latter. For that the crab's participation is of an active kind, that he does not merely not mind the anemone, and that the latter has more than his sanction, is, likewise, a thing that can be proved. This discovery was first made in 1859 by Mr. Gosse, the naturalist, for up to that time it had always been imagined that the crab, at any rate, was indifferent. Mr. Gosse, however, by the simple expedient of detaching the anemone from the shell, demonstrated that this was not the case, for on each occasion that he did so the hermit-crab picked it up again in its two claws, and pressing it against its shell, held it there for about ten minutes, at the end of which time it was sticking fast, as before. The crab, therefore, must derive some advantage from the presence of the anemone in return for the protection which he perhaps affords the latter against certain enemies. Or possibly the constant change of locality, with its increased chances of procuring food, is the real or the principal benefit conferred. But how does the crab benefit? This, at first sight, is not quite so easy to see. The explanation usually given is that it is "masked" or concealed by the sea-anemone, which is by no means small in comparison with the size of the shell, but often almost and completely covers it, forming a sort of cloak round it at its base, and towering like a pillar above it, so that of the two it is by far the more conspicuous object, especially when the crab is withdrawn, or partly withdrawn, into its shell. Nor is it always one anemone only that is affixed to the shell; there may be as many as two or three, or even more, and in some cases not only the shell, but the crab's own claws may be thus utilised. Certainly, therefore, if concealment is a gain to the crab, it obtains this advantage by the arrangement. If, too, it has any special enemies of its own--as it is very probable that it has--the stinging cells of its allies would be likely either to incapacitate them or keep them at a distance. Of one thing, at least, we may be certain, that some advantage is obtained--and, no doubt, it is a substantial one--by each of the individuals in this strange copartnership--for throughout nature, in associations of the kind, the principle expressed by the homely Scotch saying of "giff, gaff"--Anglic?, "nothing for nothing"--obtains. Apparent instances may indeed be found of one species doing something for the benefit of another, since the very nature of these arrangements is such as often to give them this appearance. But such instances are apparent only. Whatever it looks like, and whatever either or any of the parties concerned may do, they always do it for their own, and not for one another's benefit.

Supposing that concealment is the principal advantage accruing to the hermit-crab from its relations with the sea-anemone, it seems likely that this is more for the sake of securing prey than of avoiding enemies--though, indeed, both objects seem fairly attained by the shell. Another crab--the Hyas of Otaheite--arrives at similar results by means which are somewhat similar, but which, in this case, constitute a ruse which is all the creature's own. It deliberately loads on to its back a cargo of seaweed mingled with the sand and d?bris of the coral, amongst which it lives, and having done so, remains motionless, awaiting the advent of anything that may serve as a meal. The tips of the ready claws lie just within the weedy thatch, whilst the eyes at the ends of their stalks are raised above it, so as to obtain a full view. They are, however, indiscernible, except in a fatally close proximity. Time passes, the sun shines brightly down through waters clear as the clearest crystal and bluer than the bluest sky. Fishes, rainbow-hued and flashing, sometimes, with the iridescent sparkles of the humming-bird--the jewels of the tropic seas--pass and repass often quite near to the unseen peril, but except by the motion of their own bodies, or the throb of the waves, the weeds which conceal it remain unstirred. Nothing happens: yet the eyes observe, the claws may, perhaps, itch; but their owner moves not. Such beings are not for him. They are beyond his sphere, too bright, too beautiful, above all, too quick. Medusae, too, of substance translucent as the waters they move in, and washed with the colours of the sea itself, go by, sometimes in flocks, alternately expanding and contracting their smooth, bell-like bodies, whilst threads and filaments of varied form, and delicacy more exquisite than that of the finest lace, stream in beauty behind them. Sea-horses swim vertically like little mermaids, twining their tails together, or around the long fronds of many-tinted seaweeds, whilst strange and varied forms of mollusc and crustacean move upon the shell-strewn sand, or amidst the bright mazes of the coral--but still our crab makes no sign. At length a small creature of the shrimp or prawn kind--a crustacean like itself, and more active it would seem, for it swims, though backwards and in a curious jerky way--approaches the little heap; the crab's eyes glisten--they would, at least, were they capable of doing so. Alternately shooting up and sinking down again, the unsuspecting creature continues to play about in the close neighbourhood of that deadly ambuscade, and at length, in one of the latter movements, comes well within reach. It is almost on the bottom, its tail stirs the weeds and is about to bend again, when with a rush the lurking enemy is upon it, seizes it between its fatal claws, and retiring backwards amidst the shelter which the violence of its sudden movement has partially removed, proceeds to devour it at its leisure. Such is the stratagem, and such the sure, if somewhat slow, result. All sorts of creatures are thus secured by the crab, including, perhaps, on special occasions, a small and less wary fish or so.

What makes the thing still more curious and interesting--from the standpoint of the evolutionary naturalist--is that the back of the clever strategist is covered all over with a crop of stiff, wiry bristles, which, curving inwards, maintain a firm hold of the weeds that lie upon them, and prevent their slipping off. No doubt these bristles have become more and more developed as the crab has become more and more in love with the ruse, to the success of which they now largely contribute: but which came first, the ruse or the bristles, that no one can say. On the one hand, the bristles, whilst yet small and but slightly curved, might sometimes, catching amongst and holding fragments of seaweed, etc., have suggested to the crab the use to which these might be put; but, on the other, as many creatures hide themselves in order to dart out on their prey, and as a good way of doing so in the case of a flat-backed creature would be by placing things on its back, the crab may possibly have thought of this without any structural facility to suggest the idea.

This great strange crab grows to two feet in length, is stout in proportion, and has a fantastic appearance, which it is difficult to describe. It walks very high on two long stout pairs of legs, whilst a pair or two of little ones behind them are too short to touch the ground, and so dangle in the air. Its claws are enormous, its thorax very peculiar, its antennae are like those of a lobster, and its body behind more like a hornet's than a crab's--at least in a picture. What it really resembles is a hermit-crab, to which it is closely related; only to see the resemblance one must take the hermit-crab out of its borrowed shell.

NATURE'S PARASITES--PUSS-MOTH CATERPILLAR AND ICHNEUMON-FLY--CATERPILLAR DEFENCES--WASPS AND THEIR VICTIMS--A SPIDER CAUGHT--ANTS THAT ARE OGRES--OSPREY AND EAGLE--GULLS AND SKUAS--PEEWIT AND BLACK-HEADED GULL.

In the sea-anemone affixing itself to the shell of the hermit-crab, who becomes its friendly and interested landlord, we have seen one of the more pleasing instances of association between two or more different species of animals. There are many others, such as that between the shark and the pilot-fish, the honey-guide and the ratel, the rhinoceros and its little bird, etc., etc., which we can dwell upon with equal pleasure. Some, however--and, unfortunately, they are much more numerous--are of a darker character, repelling us almost as much by the picture which they present of nature's unbending cruelty as they arouse our admiration by their wonderful ingenuity and adaptation of means to ends. The most salient examples of this kind of living together--partnership we can hardly call it--are to be found, perhaps, in the insect world. Parasitism is the proper word for it, and the most salient, or at least the most repulsive, examples are furnished perhaps by the hymenoptera--that genus of insects in which the bees, wasps, and ants are included. Thus almost all caterpillars--perhaps all--are victimised by some species of ichneumon-fly--a wasp-like creature that seeks it out, pierces its soft body with a long ovipositor, with which it is provided for the purpose, and lays a number of eggs inside it. Having done this, it goes away, and the caterpillar goes on feeding. It is, however, doomed, and destined never to enter into the moth or butterfly state of existence. In due time the eggs are hatched by the warmth of its own body, and on this body to which they are so highly indebted, the young ichneumons, now in their own caterpillar state, begin with unconscious ingratitude to prey. They feast upon it day and night, but the creature, ordained by the iron laws of nature to suffer in this way, is long-lived, and though sickening from day to day, has often sufficient strength to become full-fed, and make its cocoon, and pass into the chrysalis, or pupal, state. How long it lives after that it is difficult to say. Probably some vitality remains as long, or almost as long, as any part of itself does. All that we know is that after a longer or shorter interval a score or so of ugly, evil-looking ichneumon-flies issue from the dry shell of the chrysalis, instead of the innocent and radiant creature that would otherwise have done so.

"With the gratifying feeling that her duty has been done."

In the above-mentioned instances the cell which serves as cradle and tomb combined is made by the provident mother. Some wasps, however, have learnt to save time and trouble by walling the victim up in a cell of its own manufacture, or, at least, of its own choosing. This happens to a certain spider in South America, which sits in a little hole in the ground waiting for insects either to pass or come in. The wasp, which is blue like the other, but smaller than our common one, goes about from hole to hole, and when it finds one occupied by a spider, goes a little way into it, and then rushes out, hotly pursued by the owner. When on the point of being overtaken it suddenly turns, grapples with the spider, stings it, drags it back, paralysed, into its own hole, lays an egg by it, and departs, having previously blocked up the entrance with earth. The entrance of the wasp into the spider's hole, with its retreat, some time afterwards, in feigned alarm, so as to draw the spider out, is certainly an act of great intelligence. The intelligence, however, is surpassed, or exhibited in a more entertaining manner, in the case of another wasp which has been seen to creep noiselessly round to the entrance of a spider's nest, and then wriggle one of its antennae in front of the opening. Upon this, the owner of the nest, a very large spider, came out, and was at once stung to death by the wasp. The latter then wriggled an antennae again, and upon no notice being taken, entered the nest and killed all the young spiders, which he then carried off at his leisure.

Turning to birds, we meet with instances not less interesting, whilst very much less painful, since here the victimised species is only robbed by the other, and not so frequently as to prevent its making a living. The osprey, for instance, which preys almost exclusively on fish, which it hooks with its claws out of the water, is forced, though itself a large bird, to give up much of its booty to the still more powerful white-headed eagle. The latter sits on some rocky crag or peak "that beetles o'er its base into the sea," and watches with a greedy eye the "inferior fiend," as, far below, it hovers on broad wings above its destined prey. At once the wings are closed, and the spray dashes over them as the bird precipitates itself upon a gleaming light amidst the waves. For a moment it is almost hidden in the foam and swirl, the next it emerges out of it, and mounts with powerful beats into the air, its head stretched shorewards, and its bent claws struck deep into the body of a large fish, beneath the weight of which it labours. Slowly at first, but gaining strength and speed as it ascends, it heads towards the cliff's face. Already it can see the crag on which its eyrie hangs, when, like a thunderbolt, and with the shriek or laugh of a demon, the lonely watcher, who has marked it all, hurls itself downwards on spoiler and spoil. With a quick turn the startled bird avoids the furious rush, but almost at the same moment another maniac laugh, answering the first, drowns its own note of anger and despair, as the mate of the eagle that has commenced the attack swoops towards it from a neighbouring pinnacle. All striving now on the osprey's part is in vain. Like storm-clouds the two strong robbers gather above him and descend like the jagged lightning out of them. Their screams sound almost in his ears, their claws have cut his feathers, when his own reluctantly relax their grip, and the glittering booty falls. Something falls with it--over it. There is a rushing wind of wings, an overshadowing darkness in the air, the trail of light is checked in its descent, and out of that whirlwind of excessive speed an eagle soars serenely to the sky bearing a fish in its claws. In their eyrie, or on a ledge of the precipice, the pair of imperial brigands share their meal, or distribute it to their eaglets. The osprey tries again, and may, perhaps, catch another fish before they have finished.

Other piratical plunderers are the skuas and some other members of the gull family. With the former the practice is more habitual, or, rather, it is pursued more to the exclusion of other habits of feeding. In the more northern parts of the British Isles--especially in the Orkneys and Shetlands--the lesser or arctic skua may be seen all day long during the breeding season, taking toll of the various sea-fowl, as they fly with fish to feed their young. One might think that when once the fish had been swallowed there would be an end of the annoyance, and that the rightful owner must, by the very nature of things, now be safe. Such, however, is by no means the case. Most birds have no difficulty in bringing up again what they have swallowed down.

The skua, when it swoops upon a gull, does so with the deliberate intention of forcing it to disgorge the fish it has swallowed, which it then, like the eagle, catches in the air before it has touched the sea. Should it not succeed in doing this, the fisherman asserts that it will not touch it, but invariably leaves it lying on the water, or on the land, should it chance to fall there. I have myself seen skuas act in this manner, but am not so satisfied that it is their invariable practice. Terns, should there happen to be a colony in the neighbourhood, are particularly persecuted by these skuas, insomuch that the gulls derive a distinct benefit from their presence. Puffins and guillemots are also pursued, and so ingrained is the habit of piracy that the skuas will sometimes, as it were, play at it, swooping at and chasing one another in the same manner and with the same wild cries as when they practise the art in earnest. Of course, under these circumstances neither bird disgorges to the other, and it is easy to see that neither expects the other to do so.

Only one British gull, however, as far as I know, has taken up piracy as a profession, and that is the black-headed one. It is difficult in works of natural history to find any reference to this interesting fact, but it seems to be alluded to in one of the common or local names of this species, viz. the peewit-gull. For here the parasitic relation is between a sea-bird and a land-bird--the peewit, namely--which to me makes it still more interesting. At certain times of the year, and in certain parts of the country, almost every field or piece of land near the sea-shore in which peewits are feeding is sure to have a few of these gulls scattered about it. They stand, apparently, doing nothing, but are really keenly on the look-out, and as soon as a peewit has found anything, come sweeping down upon it. In the chase which ensues the pirate is not always successful, but very generally the peewit drops his booty, and the gull either catches it in the air or picks it up off the ground.

In all the above kinds of robberies the young of the piratical species are fed more or less frequently with the food carried off by it from the various victims. This, however, is only incidental to the main habit, so that there is little in these bird doings to remind us of those horrid relations between insect and insect, with some examples of which this chapter opened, wherein one species is wholly sacrificed for the sake of the young of another. There is, however, a nearer approach to this--since though the effects are less tragic, the governing cause is the same--in that instinct which impels some few birds to lay their eggs in the nests of other species. Here, as the services of the foster parent are required, it does not itself suffer, but its own young perish to make place for the stranger. One most familiar example of this more advanced and complicated kind of parasitism is, of course, the cuckoo, but as the habits of this bird have been treated of in so many books, I need say nothing of them here.

PENGUINS AND THEIR WAYS--UNCROWNED KINGS AND EMPERORS--INNOCENT ARMIES--SURF MISSED IN A BASIN--DARWIN AND THE PENGUIN--HARANGUING THE PENGUINNERY.

Amongst the strangest and, as Buffon calls them, the most unbirdlike-looking of all birds, are the penguins--an aquatic family, numbering many species, whose headquarters are the wide waters of the southern seas, as far as to the remotest parts that have yet been explored. Wherever, indeed, the land that lies around the southern pole has a coastline, it is probable that penguins lay their eggs and rear their young; and the best hope for their continuing to do so is that some parts of this area may be too remote, or have too rigorous a climate to admit of its being often visited by mankind. Wherever sailors go, these poor birds, besides being plundered of their eggs, are destroyed in thousands, so that if every one of their breeding-haunts were to be visited each year, they would before long become extinct. On some islands, indeed, they are protected, but a modicum of protection accorded to a bird is not of much avail as against a vast amount of slaughter. Independently of what it may suffer in unequal warfare with the greed and brutality of man, every species has to hold its own in the general struggle for life, and when reduced to very small numbers, it may be unable to do so. The Falkland Islands, which lie far down off the western coast of South America, were once amongst the most popular breeding-resorts for various species of penguins, but "now," says Professor Newton, "owing doubtless to the ravages of man, whose advent is always accompanied by massacre and devastation on an enormous scale, it does not nearly approach to what it is in other places--the habit of the helpless birds, when breeding, to congregate by hundreds and thousands in what are called penguin rookeries, contributing to the ease with which their slaughter can be effected. Incapable of escape by flight, they are yet able to make enough resistance or retaliation to excite the wrath of their murderers, and this only brings upon them greater destruction, so that the interest of nearly all the numerous accounts of these rookeries is spoilt by the disgusting details of the brutal havoc perpetrated upon them." It is to be hoped that the rising generation, by having stronger views upon these things than have hitherto been held by the great majority of people, will gradually bring them to an end. Otherwise books like this will become more and more difficult to write--for there can be no romance of animal life when animal life has disappeared, and the rapidity with which it is disappearing all over the world is dreadful to think of.

In all the penguins the wings have been converted into a pair of flippers or paddles, incapable of flight, but with which the birds can propel themselves with wonderful speed in the water. It is only, however, when they dive that they use them in this way. Until then they swim with their webbed feet alone, like a duck, but as soon as they go down the wings are extended, and rapidly beat the water as if it were the air, whilst the feet close together and trail behind them like a tail. These birds, in fact, fly through the water, as others do through the air, but they do not look like birds at all, but much more like seals; and indeed the whole shape of a penguin is so much like that of a seal that one might almost mistake him for one, if it were not for his long, narrow bill. This, however, is only when he is in the water, and especially whilst swimming under it--if ever one has the chance of seeing him do that. When on land the bird presents a very different appearance. He then stands bolt upright, exposing, in a front view, the whole surface of throat, chest, and the lower ventral region. For the most part this is of a dazzling white, but in the king and emperor penguins the white passes upon the chest into a light but very lustrous yellow, which, intensifying as it mounts upwards, shines, at last, like the very sun itself. It is like a pale gold sunrise over pure white virgin snow, and as the beams rise higher they get more golden by degrees. Above this zone of colour the throat, as far as the bird's forehead, is black, but with a vivid golden band on either side, whilst the beak is of a coral red. This distribution and contrast of colouring, with the beauty of the hues themselves, give to such large, upright birds a very striking and distinguished appearance, so that, though the purple robe and the diadem be wanting, one may well think, as one looks at them, that no real king or emperor, with these to help him, ever looked the part to greater perfection than do these two grand penguins who respectively bear their titles. But if one by itself looks magnificent--and to acknowledge that it does one has only to visit the Zoological Gardens, where a specimen is kept in a basin--how must hundreds of them look, standing side by side in long rows, like so many regiments of soldiers? That, indeed, is the general simile which those who have seen these penguin birds in their antarctic dwelling-places make use of, in order to describe their appearance to more stay-at-home people, and the resemblance is increased by their sometimes walking one behind the other in single file, especially when coming up from the water to take their place on the eggs. They walk upon their toes alone, as do some of our own sea-birds--the puffin, for instance, and often the guillemot--but when standing sink down upon the shank--or tarsus, as it is called--that bone which corresponds with our own ankle.

The regimental manner in which penguins, when collected in large numbers, arrange themselves, and the soldierly appearance which they then present, is remarked upon by Dr. Bennett in his account of their habits, as witnessed by him on Macquarie's Island, in the South Pacific Ocean. "The number of penguins," he says--he is speaking of the king penguin--"collected together in this spot is immense, but it would be almost impossible to guess at it with any near approach to truth, as during the whole of the day and night thirty or forty thousand of them are continually landing, and an equal number going to sea. They are arranged, when on shore, in as compact a manner, and in as regular ranks, as a regiment of soldiers, and are classed with the greatest order, the young birds being in one situation, the moulting birds in another, the sitting hens in a third, the clean birds in a fourth, etc., and so strictly do birds in similar condition congregate that, should a bird that is in moulting intrude itself amongst those which are clean, it is immediately ejected from amongst them. The females hatch their eggs by keeping them close between their thighs; and if approached during the time of incubation, move away, carrying their eggs with them. At this time the male bird goes to sea and collects food for the female, which becomes very fat. After the young one is hatched--for these large penguins lay but a single egg--both parents go to sea and bring back food for it: it soon becomes so fat as scarcely to be able to walk, the old birds getting very thin. They sit quite upright in their roosting-places, and walk in the erect position."

When arrived at the beach, preparatory to taking the water, they fall forward on their breasts, and then shoot, with the greatest ease, through the heavy surf which breaks continually on these southern, though arctic shores. It has been supposed by members of the Zoological Society that these birds, when in confinement, miss this tumbling surf, and that the absence of the exhilaration which they experience in riding or plunging through it prevents their being bright and happy. I can well believe that they miss the surf, but as penguins at the Gardens are allowed only a very small tank or basin, whilst some are even kept in hutches without any at all, the probability is that they miss the wide expanse of water they have been accustomed to live in still more. I think if they had something a little more like the sea they could do better without the surf, and if I had anything to do with the laws of the country I would make it illegal to keep either penguins or any other kinds of swimming-birds without giving them a sheet of water at least as large as a swimming bath. Even that would be very small, but, at least, it would be better for them than a wash-basin, which is more like what they get now. Artificial rocks and rocky shores, and ice, whenever they could get it, would also be very good things for penguins in captivity.

Most of the penguins, as might be supposed, considering the life on the ocean wave which they lead, are flesh-eaters, but the king and the emperor prefer a diet of crustacea, varied, according to the Rev. J. G. Wood, with cuttlefish.

The skill with which the smaller kinds catch fish is quite wonderful, but I do not know that it is more wonderful than that displayed by other diving-birds that live in the same way. The little puffin, for instance, that with its white breast and gaily-coloured beak and feet, may be called the penguin of our shores, flies in regularly from the sea to feed its young with quite a number of fish in its bill. I have counted almost a dozen sometimes, and how it could have caught any one of them, except the first, without letting the others go, I can hardly imagine. I think, however, that each fish is killed as the bird catches it, being ripped right across by the sharp, razor-like beak. But even so, it seems wonderful that the beak can be opened whilst the bird is swimming rapidly without the force of the water carrying the fish, either alive or dead, out of it. I do not know if the penguin can add up fish in his bill in this way, but I rather doubt it, because it is a long, thin bill, more like the guillemot's than the puffin's, and I have not seen the guillemot flying to feed its young with more than one fish at a time. The razor-bill, however, whose beak, as its name suggests, is flat and blade-like, is able to perform this feat.

The king and emperor penguins are the two giants of their race, but there are a number of species much smaller, some of which are crested. These latter are called "macaronis" by the sailors, perhaps because the crest gives them a smart appearance, for "macaroni" is the Italian word for a fine gentleman, and used to be used a good deal in England once. Others are called rock-hoppers, because when they are in a hurry, and want to go quickly, they hop or jump with both feet off the ground, and get, in this way, from rock to rock. It is these smaller kinds of penguins that come to the Falkland Islands to lay their eggs, whilst the two great penguins breed only within the solitudes of the antarctic circle. Captain Abbott, of the Falkland Islands Detachment, has given a short account of the former, which contains some interesting passages. Speaking of the rock-hopper penguins, he says: "The space occupied by some of the breeding-places is nearly 500 yards long, by about 50 broad, and their eggs lie so close together that it is almost impossible to walk through without breaking some of them. I have often wondered, on disturbing these birds, and driving them away from their eggs, how, on their return, they could pick out their own among so many hundreds. Yet this they do, walking back straight to their eggs and getting them between their legs with the utmost care, fixing them in the bare space between the feathers in the centre of the lower part of their belly and gradually lowering themselves till their breasts touch the ground, the male bird of each pair standing upright, alongside of the female."

In regard to another species, called the gentoo penguin, he says: "Some of their breeding-places are near the sea, and, generally, near a freshwater pond; others, however, are several miles inland. Why they should select these latter places--so far from salt water--is a mystery. The grass from the sea to the breeding-ground is trodden down and made into a kind of road by detachments of these birds, of from ten to twenty, going to the sea and returning. They make no nest, but lay in a hollow in the earth; they occupy a square piece of ground and deposit their eggs, two in number, as close to one another as they can sit. When the young birds are old enough they all go to sea, and only occasional stragglers are found on the coast at any other time of the year." Elsewhere Captain Abbott tells us that the ground about these "rookeries" is covered with small, round stones, which these birds eject from the bill on coming up from the salt water, in green masses, about the size of a shilling. It was on the Falkland Islands that Darwin, the great naturalist and philosopher, had an experience with a penguin, of which he gives the following interesting account: "Another day, having placed myself between a penguin and the water, I was much amused by watching its habits. It was a brave bird, and, till reaching the sea, it regularly fought and drove me backwards. Nothing less than heavy blows would have stopped him; every inch he gained he firmly kept, standing close before me, erect and determined. When thus opposed he continually rolled his head from side to side in a very odd manner, as if the power of distinct vision lay only in the interior and basal part of each eye." This bird that thus measured its strength with the celebrated philosopher, was of a kind called the jackass penguin, a name which it has received "from its habit, whilst on shore, of throwing its head backwards and making a loud, strange noise, very like the braying of an ass; but while at sea, and undisturbed, its note is very deep and solemn, and is often heard in the night-time."

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