crew of the brig perished, for some weeks,
nothing occurring to break the monotony of the solitary life they were
leading; until, one morning, without any warning, the penguins, which
had been their constant companions from the commencement of their self-
chosen exile up to now, suddenly left the island.

This was in the month of April.

Never was a migration more unexpected.

On the evening before, the birds, so long as daylight lasted, were seen
still playing about in the bay and arranging themselves in lines along
the rough escarpment of the headlands, where they were drawn up like
soldiers on parade and apparently dressed in the old-fashioned uniform
that is sometimes still seen on the stage. Really, their black and
white plumage exactly resembled the white buckskin breeches and black
three-cornered hats of the whilom mousquetaires; while their drooping
flappers seemed like hands down their sides in the attitude of
"attention!"--the upper portions of the wings, projecting in front,
representing those horrible cross-belts that used to make the men look
as if they wore stays.

The penguins seemed so much at home on the island that it looked as if
they never intended leaving it, albeit the brothers noticed that the
birds barked and grumbled more discordantly than they had done of late.
No doubt there was something on hand, they thought; but they never
dreamt that this grand pow-wow was their leave-taking of the rookery;
but, lo and behold! when Eric came out of the hut next morning to pay
his customary matutinal visit to the beach, there was not a single
penguin to be seen anywhere in the vicinity, either out in the water or
on land!

They had disappeared, as if by magic, in one single night. In the
evening before, they were with them; when day dawned, they were gone!

Fritz and Eric had got so accustomed to the birds by this time, studying
their habits and watching the progress of many of the adult penguins
from the egg to representative birdom, as they passed through the
various gradations of hatching and moulting, that they quite missed them
for the first few days after their departure.

The cliffs, without their presence to enliven them, appeared never so
stern and bleak and bare as now; the headlands never so forbidding and
impassable; the valley never so prison-like, to the brothers, shut in as
they were and confined to the bay!

However, the winter season coming on apace, the two soon had plenty to
d