Antarctic Penguins: A Study of Their Social HabitsLevick, G. Murray (George Murray)
Science
Antarctic Penguins: A Study of Their Social Habits
Levick, G. Murray (George Murray)
Penguins
The following description of the plumage and soft parts of _Pygoscelis
Adeliæ_, which is perfectly correct, is taken from the zoological report
of the _Discovery_ Expedition.
Soft Parts.
"_Bill_, when first hatched, blackish. A week old, black terminally,
deep red at the gape and along the cutting edges. Immature of the first
year, blackish. Adult, brick-red, the upper bill black terminally, and
the mandible black along the cutting edge.
"_Iris_, brown; varying between reddish brown and greenish brown.
"_Eyelids_, black throughout the first year; pure white in the adult at
fourteen months and onwards.
"_Feet_, flesh red; dusky when first hatched, brightening in the first
week or two. Immature and adult, pale flesh pink above, black beneath
(in some cases piebald beneath).
"_Claws_, brown."
* * * * *
In the majority of the chicks the down is uniformly dark and sooty, but
here and there, in progeny of quite normal parents, one may find
nestlings of so pale a grey as to be almost silvery white, with blackish
heads, possibly a reversion to an earlier type, and, at any rate,
suggestive of the young of the Emperor penguin, which perhaps represents
the oldest stock of all. According to Dr. Bowdler Sharp, the colour of
the head is in all cases blacker in the earlier stages than the rest of
the body.(8)
(8) This was invariable at Cape Adare.
As the chick ages the colour of its down changes, and all of it takes on
a dull rusty brown colour. As it moults the abdomen and thighs change
first, and white feathers appear in place of the down. Then come changes
on the head, round the bill, and at the tail; the upper breast, neck,
and back being the last parts to moult.
The feet, which in the young nestling have been almost black, change in
colour to a brick-red that shows up very markedly against the rusty
brown down, looking as if the legs were raw and inflamed. Later the
permanent flesh colour is acquired, with black plantar surfaces. The
nails are black at first, and later change to brown.
When the nestling down is shed, the resulting plumage is that of the
adult, except that the throat is white instead of black. The upper part
of the head and neck are bluish black, the throat, fore-neck, breast,
and abdomen being a pure dazzling metallic white, a sharp line
separating the white from the black areas. The flippers are the same
bluish "tar" black on the back and white beneath.
In addition to the distinctive pure white plumage of the throat, the
immature bird differs from the adult in one very marked particular,
which is that the eyelids are black, as in the chick, and do not acquire
the staring whiteness which is so distinctive of the adult Adélie
penguin, increasing, as it does, the white area of the sclerotic so that
the bird has the appearance of being perpetually surprised or very
angry.
The iris is a rich reddish brown in the adults, but variable in the
young.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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