o the sea again, that we could scarcely believe it
was not a fish that had leaped in sport.

"That beats everything," said Peterkin, rubbing his nose, and screwing up
his face with an expression of exasperated amazement. "I've heard of a
thing being neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, but I never did expect to live
to see a brute that was all three together,--at once--in one! But look
there!" he continued, pointing with a look of resignation to the shore,
"look there! there's no end to it. What _has_ that brute got under its
tail?"

We turned to look in the direction pointed out, and there saw a penguin
walking slowly and very sedately along the shore with an egg under its
tail. There were several others, we observed, burdened in the same way;
and we found afterwards that these were a species of penguins that always
carried their eggs so. Indeed, they had a most convenient cavity for the
purpose, just between the tail and the legs. We were very much impressed
with the regularity and order of this colony. The island seemed to be
apportioned out into squares, of which each penguin possessed one, and
sat in stiff solemnity in the middle of it, or took a slow march up and
down the spaces between. Some were hatching their eggs, but others were
feeding their young ones in a manner that caused us to laugh not a
little. The mother stood on a mound or raised rock, while the young one
stood patiently below her on the ground. Suddenly the mother raised her
head and uttered a series of the most discordant cackling sounds.

"She's going to choke," cried Peterkin.

But this was not the case, although, I confess, she looked like it. In a
few seconds she put down her head and opened her mouth, into which the
young one thrust its beak and seemed to suck something from her throat.
Then the cackling was renewed, the sucking continued, and so the
operation of feeding was carried on till the young one was satisfied; but
what she fed her little one with, we could not tell.

"Now, just look yonder!" said Peterkin, in an excited tone; "if that
isn't the most abominable piece of maternal deception I ever saw. That
rascally old lady penguin has just pitched her young one into the sea,
and there's another about to follow her example."

This indeed seemed to be the cue, for, on the top of a steep rock close
to the edge of the sea, we observed an old penguin endeavouring to entice
her young one into the water; but the young one seemed v