Antarctic Penguins; a study of their social habits, by Dr. G. Murray Levick

Excerpt: ... he stood on it. There were scarcely any stones in the nest, which contained one egg. I think from the way they fought that both were cocks. For two reasons I make special mention of the occurrence, first, because of all the fights I ever saw this was the longest and most relentless, and, secondly, because the nest being in such an isolated position it seemed curious that there could be any mistake about its ownership. Such, however, seemed to be the case, and hour after hour, during the whole day, they fought again and again. After each bout of a few minutes both birds became so exhausted that they sank panting to the ground, evidently suffering from thirst and at the limit of their endurance. Sometimes one captured the nest, sometimes the other, but after several hours of this, one of them began to show signs of outlasting the other, and kept possession. For long after this, however, the other returned repeatedly to the attack. Fig. 43. JUMPING FROM THE WATER ON TO SLIPPERY ICE (Page 82 ) I fetched my camera and photographed the birds as they fought (Fig. 36 ). As time went on, the weaker bird took longer and longer intervals to recover between his attacks, lying on his breast, with his head on the snow and eyes half closed, so that I thought he was going to die. Each time he got to his feet and staggered at his enemy, the latter rose from the nest and met him, only to drive him back again. When I saw them at about 10 P.M. (it was perpetual daylight now) both were lying down, the victor on the nest, the vanquished about five yards off. The next day one bird remained on the nest and the other had gone, and I do not know what happened to him. In the course of a walk through the rookery considerable diversity in the choice of nesting sites was to be noticed. The general tendency is for the penguins to build their nests close together (within a foot or two of one another) on the tops of the rounded knolls, the lower levels being left untenanted. The...