The hilarious chaos of this 1914 penguin book
Antarctic Penguins: a Study Of Their Social Habits by Dr. G. Murray Levick
I love nature books of old. Just curious writers observing nature in all its ridiculousness and beauty and speculating about it like we did when we were kids.
Here’s the perfect example. Antarctic Penguins: a Study Of Their Social Habits by Dr. G. Murray Levick, zoologist to the British antarctic expedition, from 1914.
Pure animal observation plus goofy photos of derpy Adélie penguins.
The author heavily anthropomorphizes the penguins, which is a huge plus in my book:
“When seen for the first time, the Adélie penguin gives you the impression of a very smart little man in an evening dress suit...”
If life in the Antarctic wasn’t hard enough for these poor pengies, you have this random human visitor seemingly determined to annoy the hell out of you:
“Stand still for a minute till he has settled himself to sleep, then make sound enough to wake him without startling him, and he opens his eyes, stretching himself, yawns, then finally walks off, caring no more about you.”
Penguin shenanigans
Some of this book reads like something out of the 2008 slapstick comedy Strange Wilderness:
“The Adélies ... extremely brave, and though panic occasionally overtakes them, I have seen a bird return time after time to attack a seaman who was brutally sending it flying by kicks from his sea-boot, before I arrived to interfere.”
Then there’s this hilarious description of a penguin fighting our author:
“...occasionally a cock attacks you bravely, battering you with his little flippers in a manner ludicrous at first but aggravating after a time...
After a time? How long did you sit there letting that penguin flipper-slap you?
Also, he writes in musical notation the “guttural” sound a penguin makes while in “ecstasy,” you know, if you ever wanted to play it on your piano:
There is a ton more in this book, and it’s not all riotous chaos. There is a lot of sweet penguin couple stuff, and some very fascinating observations of nest-building, climbing and diving, swimming, “tobogganing,” and other fun pengy stuffs. But it’s mostly riotous chaos.
Here’s the full text.
- Joe
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