as soon as they approached the line of nests, different individuals
sidling up to the sitting birds and giving their partners a peck with
their beaks, by way of a hint, barking out some word of explanation at
the same time. In another moment, the home-coming penguin had wedged
itself into the place of the other, which struggling on to its feet then
proceeded outside the thicket, where, being joined by others whose guard
had been thus similarly relieved, the fresh group proceeded together, in
a hurried, scrambling sort of run, to the beach, whence they shortly
plunged into the sea, having, however, their usual gabbling colloquy
first in concert before taking to the water.

"They're a funny lot," said Eric; "still, they're not going to get the
better of me, for I intend to load the wheelbarrow with their guano,
whether they like it or not!"

"I wouldn't disturb them again, if I were you," observed Fritz. "They
seem to have quieted down, and do not mind our presence now."

"I won't trouble them, for I shall not go inside their rookery," said
Eric. "I only intend to skirt round the place, and see what I can pick
up outside."

"Very well then, I will go on digging the garden, which I have been
neglecting all this time, if you will get the manure. I should like to
plant some of our potatoes to-day, before knocking off work, if we can
manage it."

"All right, fire away; I will soon come and join you," said Eric, and
the brothers separated again--Fritz proceeding back to the ground he had
been digging, which now began to look quite tidy; while the sailor lad,
lifting up the handles of the wheelbarrow, trundled it off once more
along the edge of the tussock-grass thicket, stopping every now and
again to shovel up the guano, until he had collected a full load, when
he wheeled his way back to where Fritz was working away still hard at
the potato patch.

A piece of ground twenty yards long by the same in breadth is not easy
to dig over in a day, even to the most industrious toiler, and so Fritz
found it; for, in spite of the interruption his brother had suffered
from on his first start after the manure from the bird colony, the lad
managed to cover the whole of the plot they had marked out with the
fertilising compound, which he wheeled up load after load, long before
he had accomplished half his task, although he dug away earnestly.

Fritz had been a little more sanguine than he usually was. He thought
he could have