Symzonia: Voyage of Discovery

A colony of Gentoo Penguins, on the borders of the south-east cove of Grand Jason, first attracted my attention. Their city stands on a beautiful level spot, a short distance from the water. Every pair of Penguins has a separate establishment built of earth, stones, and sticks, of about two feet elevation, and eighteen inches diameter; on the top of which is their nest. There are some thousands of these stands arranged in regular order, with an open square in the centre, regular streets between the ranges of nests, and a broad avenue leading from the square towards the places of landing and diving. This avenue, a short distance from the settlement, divides into two broad paths; one leading to the diving place, which is a perpendicular rock in deep water, and the other to the landing place, which is a sloping rock of easy access from the sea. It being the egg season, which soon passes away, I determined to make it hold out, if practicable, until the time of our departure, that we might have a stock of fresh eggs to take with us. Remembering that our barn-yard fowls continue to deposit eggs as long as but one is daily left in the nest, I adopted that plan with the Penguins, and stationed Jack Whiffle, boatswains-mate, with three assistants, to remove the eggs daily, and stack them; keeping an account of the several stacks, that we might take our supply from those last gathered. This was no trifling job. The nests were so numerous that it was a hard morning's work for four men to visit them all, and take an egg from each in defiance of the lawful proprietor, who always defended his property to the best of his ability, and never forsook the stand, through fear, but maintained possession until pushed off. The plan answered my expectations: the Penguins continued to supply eggs in place of those that were removed, until our departure, when we took with us barrels of them packed in salt.