Talking of dogs, I wish I had my old Gelert here; he would soon have made a diversion in your favour and routed the penguins!" "Would he ?" exclaimed Eric in a doubting tone, still rather sore in his mind at having been forced to beat a retreat before his feathered assailants.

"I fancy the best dog in the world would have been cowed by those vicious brutes; for, if he didn't turn tail, he would be pecked to death in a minute!" Eric was not far wrong, as a fine setter, belonging to one of the officers of HMS _Challenger_, when that vessel was engaged in surveying the islands of the South Atlantic, during her scientific voyage in 1874, was torn to pieces by the penguins in the same way that Eric was assailed, before it could be rescued.
"Never mind," said Fritz, "I wish dear old Gelert were here all the same." "So do I," chorussed Eric, jumping up on his legs and shaking himself, to see whether his bones might not have received some damage in the affray.

"We should have rare fun setting him at the penguins and interrupting their triumphant marches up and down the beach!" And he raised his fist threateningly at his late foes.
"Do you know," observed Fritz, who had been cogitating awhile, "I think I see the reason for their methodical habit of going to and from the water." "Indeed ?" said Eric.
"Yes.

Don't you recollect how an equal number seem always to come out from the rookery and proceed down the beach when the other batches land from the sea, just as if they took it in rotation to go fishing ?" "Of course.

Why, Captain Brown specially pointed that out to us." "Well," said Fritz, "the reason for that is, that the males and females mind the nests in turn, just as you sailors keep watch on board ship.
First, let us say, the gentlemen penguins go off to the sea to have a swim, and see what they can catch; and then, at the expiration of a fixed time, these return to the shore and take charge of the nests, sitting on the eggs while their wives, whom they thus relieve for a spell, have a spell off, so as to get a mouthful of fresh air--" "Water, you mean," interposed Eric, jokingly.
"All right, water then, and perhaps a fish or two as well; after which they come back to attend to their own legitimate department.