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