F

OR nearly a week we had been cruising southward from Puerto Montt, the most southern point reached by rail in Chile, if we bar the semi-tramway on the neighboring island of Chiloé. Daily we had seen penguins: low-lying bird craft which never came very near us and which submerged without a trace when we approached them. One need not be a naturalist to react keenly to the sight of penguins. By the unwritten laws of heraldry they are the emblems of Antarctica. When standing erect in orderly array, clad in a costume which strangely simulates evening dress, with armlike wings hanging at their sides, they seem so much more man-like than bird-like that we are apt to think of them as a strange little people, perhaps our avian ancestors who as living fossils have been preserved in a south polar world. Pájaros niños, or "child birds," the Chileans call them, and their human attributes are expressed in the name.

The clearings and farms, the villages and church spires of the eastern slopes of Chiloé were disappointing evidences of man's presence, where we had hoped to find nature primeval, and we welcomed the penguins, therefore, as proof that we were cruising in strange waters. In the Guaitecas, our captain assured us, we should find them nesting. We recalled the pictures, made by the Scott and Shackleton expeditions, of penguins living in close-massed colonies on barren shores, and promised ourselves an equally full photographic record of their communal life.

Many disappointments have led us not to place too much confidence in the promises of guides, captains, and other alleged local authorities on birds, beasts, or fish. Their standards of accuracy in

observation and statement do not always agree with ours. But it is probable that in all of South America we could not have found a man better fitted by experience and ancestry to command a naturalist's voyage, than was Captain Yates. Not only had he sailed south Chilean waters for more than forty years, but he was the son of a sailor who had served under Fitzroy on the Beagle and seemed thereby to form a connecting link between Darwin and ourselves. Born of an English father and Chillote mother, and reared on the island of Chiloé, with Yates changed to "Yahtees," the English element was nevertheless dominant in Captain Yates's nature. The 80-foot, tug-like steamer which bore his name and of which he was owner as well as commander, was clean, ship-shape, and serviceable, and when he agreed to sail at any hour, from 3 A. M. onward, you could set your watch by the starting bell.

Captain," I once said to him, "I see that you are a man of your word."

Soy Inglés," he replied, tapping his chest with a gesture eloquent of the force of the racial tradition which makes la palabra Inglesa a standard for honesty in Latin-America.

So when the Captain told us that in addition to steamer ducks, the special objects of our voyage, we should also find penguins nesting in the Guaitecas, without reservation we believed him. Steamer ducks were awaiting us as though by appointment on the outermost island of the three thousand which are said to form the Guaitecas group, and for a time we were too absorbed in watching this remarkable member of the family Anatida to think of other birds. Then there were the islands themselves to claim our attention: little islands and large islands, low islands and high islands-some were

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evenly and symmetrically rounded and domed; others were irregular in shape and fluted, notched, or dented in outline; but never were they peaked or pointed. And every one, except the smallest rocky beginning of an islet, was densely clothed from high-water mark to summit with unbroken forest so clogged below with undergrowth and fallen mossy trees that one could enter it only on hands and knees, and then but a yard or two.

Finally it occurred to me that nowhere had we seen a fit habitation for penguins. At low tide narrow margins of steep, descending rock were visible beneath the overhanging branches, but beyond this was the wall of impenetrable undergrowth-like evergreen shrubbery over a gravel walk," Darwin described it. QUESTIONING THE CAPTAIN'S VERACITY no place here

ulous; but the Captain continued calm and confident. Suddenly he said "Van aquí" [they go here], and motioned the oarsmen toward the shore. I remained incredulous but curious to see how the Captain would extricate himself from a position which each moment seemed to become more hopeless. There was nothing in sight that to me even faintly suggested penguins, but as our boat drew alongside the islet the Captain pointed to a narrow worn pathway in the rocks and said: "Mire, el camino de los pájaros niños." It obviously was a road of some kind, and developments now followed one another so rapidly that doubt soon gave way to amazement.

Where the narrow fringe of rock ended the forest began. Between the close-set trees the ground was densely covered with undergrowth, bushes, giant ferns, and climbing bamboo, but through it

for birds who could neither perch nor fly, and whose limited powers of locomotion on land demanded unobstructed foot-way. This was a double disappointment. Much as I regretted losing an opportunity to visit a penguin settlement, I felt even more the loss of confidence in Captain Yates's veracity. It seemed to discredit his inherited association with Darwin. At least, I would ask him to explain his promise of nesting penguins, though I feared he might become even more involved in the attempt. Sure enough, in reply to my inquiry, he promptly said "Aqui están, Señor," and pointed to an island not a hundred yards from where we were anchored, every foot of which seemed covered with luxuriant, first-growth forest.

But I was not to be bluffed. "Good," I said, "let's go ashore." Without trace of embarrassment the Captain ordered a boat lowered and, with a feeling that I was carrying my point too far, we rowed slowly along the shore-line. The tide was high and the line of shelving rock at the water's edge was almost hidden by low-hanging limbs. These the Captain examined as intently as though he expected to see penguins roosting on 1 them. The situation was becoming ridic

yard or more in width, with the black earth as free of vegetation as though it had been swept. About fifty feet from the water's edge the road forked. One branch continued up a narrow ravine, the other climbed the steep slope of the island. The latter was clearly the main highway. I followed it. Here not only the moss. and fallen leaves which elsewhere covered the ground had disappeared, but even the roots of trees and bushes were exposed. They seemed almost like steps in a staircase, and were in fact a root ladder. Freshly turned earth showed that some one or something (by this time I was prepared for any discovery!) had only recently preceded us.

At the end of the first ascent a small runway left the main road and after a few yards disappeared in a large hole in an adjoining bank. Judging from the condition of the dirt at its mouth, it had been recently excavated. "Casa del pâjaro niño," said the Captain. I investigated its black depths cautiously, but found no one at home.

We returned to the main highway which continued to ascend toward the highest point on the island. At a spot about one hundred feet above the water

and some four hundred feet from it, the road entered a small, flat, open space trod smooth by many feet. This was evidently the center or plaza of what had now become a city. From it paths led From it paths led to home-sites beneath roots or in the sides of banks. We could see half-adozen or more newly made openings at a glance, and the climax of the whole surprising experience was reached when in one of them we found a penguin with a family of two nearly grown young.

ON

was not occasioned by the weather of a day but the experience of many months. We had reason therefore to be grateful for the good fortune which, with the exception of a day or two, made the first two weeks of 1924 memorable for their perfection. I find in my journal such phrases as "a day of incredible beauty,' or, "a day so perfect that all the beauty and charm of a month seem forced into it; the dustless air sparkled with a brilliancy I have never seen equalled."

man.

The Captain was vindicated, the Darwin association reëstablished, and it only remained for me to make friends with the inhabitants of the island. It soon became evident that this could be done only by the exercise of much diplomacy. The sailors from the Yates wanted to plunge a spear-like pole into every penguin dwelling, a method of approach clearly not designed to win its owners' good-will. After a brief reconnaissance we therefore returned to the steamer, and subsequent calls on the penguins were made either alone or with my colleague Frederic Walcott.

DARWIN WAS ANXIOUS TO MOVE ON

THE

HE climate of this part of the world climate of wond bears an evil reputation. Here on a stormy January 1, 1835, Darwin wrote in his "Journal": "The New Year is ushered in with the ceremonies proper to it in these regions. She lays out no false hopes; a heavy northwestern gale with steady rain, bespeaks the rising year. Thank God, we are not destined here to see the end of it, but hope then to be in the Pacific Ocean, where a blue sky tells one there is a heaven-a something beyond the clouds above our heads." This uncharacteristic outburst, written in midsummer in the heart of the dry season,

Under such conditions the home of the pájaros niños seemed a veritable Garden of Eden. In variety of form and color of trunk, limb, leaf and blossom and amazing profusion of growth the forest rivalled the most luxuriant vegetation of

the tropics. But this was an inviting, friendly forest. You cannot take liberties with a tropical jungle. with a tropical jungle. Throw yourself there on the bosom of Mother Earth and you find that she returns your caress with an invasion of insect pests more or less unwelcome if not venomous. But here there were no flies, no mosquitoes, no "red-bugs," ticks, or poisonous snakes; one seemed enveloped in a glowing, healthful, leafy hospitality. It was a place for paradise birds rather than penguins. But if paradise birds were not there, parrots were long-tailed green birds with a touch of reddish on breast and forehead, that in small flocks flew screaming over the tree-tops. And, stranger still, there were dozens of rubycrowned humming birds drinking from the scarlet cups of a vine whose flowers made the trunks of many trees look like columns of fire; what an unheard-of ornithological assemblage-penguins, parrots, and humming birds! One would as soon expect to find polar bears and monkeys associated. To return now to the penguins.