AURORA AUSTRALIS.
perhaps still more horrid action.
But stay!— What form is that emerging from the shade of yonder ice-berg? It strides towards us with swinging gait, recalling to my mind unpleasant memories of my bird-nesting days.
I cannot control a strange flutter of apprehension in the slack of my trousers, a sort of prophetic sensation of tenderness behind.
That is strangely like a knotted cudgel carried, with ill-concealed menace, under the left arm. “No Gamekeepers” did I say? It must be a gamekeeper.
But he is upon us! All doubt is banished. He is the most enormous Emperor Penguin I have ever met. Full six feet high, and broad quite out of proportion, his appearance is so extraordinary that I must describe it minutely.
The large, angry eyes, glaring from beneath a close-fitting cap, drawn down over the ears, flank a prodigious black bill, a foot long and curved like a scythe-blade. He wears a black velveteen coat with long skirts, and underneath this a white moleskin waistcoat with brass buttons, and baggy trousers of the same colour. The delicate creamy tinge which I have observed on the throats of common emperors is developed into a gorgeous red and gold collar or stock.
