ke rabbits in a
warren, and quite as fast. Yet they are really birds, penguins of the
same species which supplied so considerable a part of their yesterday's
dinner and to-day's breakfast. The strangest thing of all is that these
Protean creatures, which seem fitted only for an aquatic existence,
should be so much at home on land, so ably using their queer wings as
substitutes for legs that they can run up or down high and precipitous
slopes with the swiftness of a hare.

From the experience of yesterday, Ned and Harry might anticipate attack
by the penguins. But that experience has taught the birds a lesson,
which they now profit by, scuttling off, frightened at the sight of the
murderous invaders, who have made such havoc among them and their
nestlings.

On the drier upland still another curious bird is encountered, singular
in its mode of breeding and other habits. A petrel it is, about the
size of a house pigeon, and of a slate-blue colour. This bird, instead
of laying its eggs, like the penguin, on the surface of the ground,
deposits them, like the sand-martin and burrowing owl, at the bottom of
a burrow. Part of the ground over which the climbers have to pass is
honeycombed with these holes, and they see the petrels passing in and
out; Seagriff, meanwhile, imparting a curious item of information about
them. It is that the Fuegians capture these birds by tying a string to
the legs of certain small birds, and force them into the petrels' nests,
whereupon the rightful owners, attacking and following the intruders as
they are jerked out by the cunning decoyers, are themselves captured.

Continuing upward, the slope is found to be steeper, and more difficult
than was expected. What from below seemed a gentle acclivity turns out
to be almost a precipice--a very common illusion with those unaccustomed
to mountain climbing. But they are not daunted--every one of the men
has stood on the main truck of a tempest-tossed ship. What to this were
even the scaling of a cliff? The ladies, too, have little fear, and
will not consent to stay below, but insist on being taken to the very
summit.

The last stage proves the most difficult. The only practicable path is
up a sort of gorge, rough-sided, but with the bottom smooth and slippery
as ice. It is grass-grown all over, but the grass is beaten close to
the surface, as if schoolboys had been "coasting" down it. All except
Seagriff suppose it to be the work of the