admiring group of Adélie penguins."[58]

Meares used to sing to them what he called 'God save,' and declared that
it would always send them headlong into the water. He sang flat: perhaps
that was why.

Two or more penguins will combine to push a third in front of them
against a skua gull, which is one of their enemies, for he eats their
eggs or their young if he gets the chance. They will refuse to dive off
an ice-foot until they have persuaded one of their companions to take the
first jump, for fear of the sea-leopard which may be waiting in the water
below, ready to seize them and play with them much as a cat will play
with a mouse. As Levick describes in his book about the penguins at Cape
Adare: "At the place where they most often went in, a long terrace of ice
about six feet in height ran for some hundreds of yards along the edge
of the water, and here, just as on the sea-ice, crowds would stand near
the brink. When they had succeeded in pushing one of their number over,
all would crane their necks over the edge, and when they saw the pioneer
safe in the water, the rest followed."[59]

It is clear then that the Adélie penguin will show a certain spirit of
selfishness in tackling his hereditary enemies. But when it comes to the
danger of which he is ignorant his courage betrays want of caution.
Meares and Dimitri exercised the dog-teams out upon the larger floes when
we were held up for any length of time. One day a team was tethered by
the side of the ship, and a penguin sighted them and hurried from afar
off. The dogs became frantic with excitement as he neared them: he
supposed it was a greeting, and the louder they barked and the more they
strained at their ropes, the faster he bustled to meet them. He was
extremely angry with a man who went and saved him from a very sudden end,