"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 case, 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 very unwilling to
go, and notwithstanding the enticements of its mother, moved very slowly
towards her. At last she went gently behind the young bird and pushed
it a little towards the water, but with great tenderness, as much as to
say, "Don't be afraid, darling; I won't hurt you, my pet!" But no
sooner did she get it to the edge of the rock, where it stood looking
pensively down at the sea, than she gave it a sudden and violent push,
sending it headlong down the slope into the water, where its mother left
it to scramble ashore as it best could. We observed many of them
employed in doing this, and we came to the conclusion that this is the
way in which old penguins teach their children to swim.

Scarcely had we finished making our remarks on this, when we were
startled by about a dozen of the old birds hopping in the most clumsy
and ludicrous manner towards the sea. The beach here was a sloping
rock, and when they came to it some of them succeeded in hopping down in
safety, but others lost their balance and rolled and scrambled down the
slope in the most helpless manner. The instant they reached the water,
however, they seemed to be in their proper element. They dived, and
bounded out of it and into it again with the utmost agility; and so,
diving and bounding and sputtering--for they could not fly--they went
rapidly out to sea.

On seeing this, Peterkin turned with a grave face to us and said, "It's
my opinion that these birds are all stark, staring mad, and that this is
an enchanted island. I therefore propo