Although for the later arrivals a good deal of fighting was necessary before a mate could be secured, it seemed that some got the matter fixed up without any difficulty at all, especially during the earlier days when only a few birds were scattered widely over the rookery. Later, the cocks seemed to watch one another jealously, and to hunt in little batches in consequence. (Figs. 27, 28, and 29.) From the particulars I have just given it is also evident that a wife and home once obtained could only be kept by dint of further battling and constant vigilance during the first stages of domesticity, when thousands of lusty cocks were pouring into the rookery, and it was not unusual to see a strange cock paying court to a mated hen in the absence of her husband until he returned to drive away the interloper, but I do not think that this ever occurred after the eggs had come and the regular family life begun, couples after this being perfectly faithful to one another. The instance I have given of a newly arrived cock by dumb show pretending to take a stone and place it before a mated hen, is typical of the sort of first overture one sees, though more frequently an actual stone was tendered. While on this subject I had better mention a most interesting thing which occurred to one of my companions. One day as he was sitting quietly on some shingle near the ice-foot, a penguin approached him, and after eyeing him for a little, walked right up to him and nibbled gently at one of the legs of his wind-proof trousers. Then it walked away, picked up a pebble, and came back with it, dropping it on the ground by his side. The only explanation of this occurrence seems to be that the tendering of the stone was meant as an overture of friendship. [Illustration: Fig. 26. THE PROPOSAL. (NOTE THE HEN IN HER SCOOP) (Pages 35 and 43)] On October 26 there was no abatement in the stream of arrivals. The cock-fighting continued, and many of them, temporarily disabled, were to be seen moping about the rookery, smeared with blood and guano. Often a hen would join in when two cocks were fighting, occasionally going first for one and then the other, but I never to my knowledge saw a cock retaliate on a hen. Once I saw two cocks fighting, and a hen taking the part of one of the cocks, the pair of them gave the other a fearful hammering, the hen using her bill savagely as well as her flippers. Completely knocked out and gasping for breath he got away at last, only to meet another cock who fought him and easily beat him. When this one had gone a third came, and the poor victim with a courage truly noble was squaring himself up with his last spark of energy, when I interfered and drove away his enemy.