dogs, I wish I had my
old Gelert here; he would soon have made a diversion in your favour and
routed the penguins!"

"Would he?" exclaimed Eric in a doubting tone, still rather sore in his
mind at having been forced to beat a retreat before his feathered
assailants. "I fancy the best dog in the world would have been cowed by
those vicious brutes; for, if he didn't turn tail, he would be pecked to
death in a minute!"

Eric was not far wrong, as a fine setter, belonging to one of the
officers of HMS _Challenger_, when that vessel was engaged in surveying
the islands of the South Atlantic, during her scientific voyage in 1874,
was torn to pieces by the penguins in the same way that Eric was
assailed, before it could be rescued.

"Never mind," said Fritz, "I wish dear old Gelert were here all the
same."

"So do I," chorussed Eric, jumping up on his legs and shaking himself,
to see whether his bones might not have received some damage in the
affray. "We should have rare fun setting him at the penguins and
interrupting their triumphant marches up and down the beach!" And he
raised his fist threateningly at his late foes.

"Do you know," observed Fritz, who had been cogitating awhile, "I think
I see the reason for their methodical habit of going to and from the
water."

"Indeed?" said Eric.

"Yes. Don't you recollect how an equal number seem always to come out
from the rookery and proceed down the beach when the other batches land
from the sea, just as if they took it in rotation to go fishing?"

"Of course. Why, Captain Brown specially pointed that out to us."

"Well," said Fritz, "the reason for that is, that the males and females
mind the nests in turn, just as you sailors keep watch on board ship.
First, let us say, the gentlemen penguins go off to the sea to have a
swim, and see what they can catch; and then, at the expiration of a
fixed time, these return to the shore and take charge of the nests,
sitting on the eggs while their wives, whom they thus relieve for a
spell, have a spell off, so as to get a mouthful of fresh air--"

"Water, you mean," interposed Eric, jokingly.

"All right, water then, and perhaps a fish or two as well; after which
they come back to attend to their own legitimate department. Look now
at that group there, just in front of us?"

Eric glanced towards the spot where his brother directed his attention,
and noticed a party of penguins returning from the sea. These separated