#Soul nomad and the world eaters patch 1.03 full#
Any individual bird not equipped in his full panoply of well-trimmed plumage is forbidden to mix in the annual gatheringtill every feather is in place. As the season draws to a close and moulting sets in, the fading beauties of their plumage seem to exercise a repulsive influence, and they live more apart as their splendours grow dim, till, the new crop of feathers once more complete, they again begin to re-assemble. The Penguins are gregarious during the breeding season, when they assemble in vast multitudes on rugged isolated islands in the South Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Though not possessing the most brilliant hues, the Penguin is one of the most handsomely coloured of birds, with its bold contrasts of jet black, snowy white, and blue and silvery greys. Tt is particularly cleanly in its habits, and no speck or stain, for which it constantly surveys its feathers, is allowed to remain for an instant after being observed. The family is divided into six genera in all, yet only fifteen distinct species are known out of this number, four are met with on the Australian coast. TTTITH many, the figure of the Penguin stands out prominently among the earliest recollections, for picture books make its form familiar to children, even before they are able to read about it. The wise-looking, helpless, dandyfied birds, standing upright in their great phalanxes on the lonely, far-away islands, are mixed up with the earliest impressions of most of us. The Albatross, with his giant wing and tireless flight, the “Stormy Petrels” or “Mother Carey’s Chickens,” both of them indefatigable in flight and in their attendance on vessels long before they sight our shores, and still with that uncanny flavour to their reputation among sailors, that to kill them brings disaster with these and the other examples it will readily be allowed that on the whole Australia is rich in the number of birds which she possesses of the most instructive Order of Natatorcs. The predatory Frigate-Bird makes his raids along our shores, and, lastly, the Albatrosses and Petrels are found in great abundance and variety. The snow-white and silvery Gull is found in all latitudes, but only torrid lands are visited by the Tropic-Bird, with its rosy, coveted tail-feathers, and Australia’s northern coasts are frequented by one of these. Sea-Swallows, which, though web-footed, appear to use only their powerful wings for locomotion, and the three varieties of Penguins, standing in myriads like lines of soldiers afford a spectacle unknown to many countries The Gannets are numerous, and may be seen all round the coast, making their daring plunges after unwary fish among these the “Booby,” with its complacence and lack of fear, is the most comical of birds. The same remark applies to Cormorants the Diver, with its marvellous swiftness and cunning in the water, has also a representative, and the Darter, with its snake-like head and neck. Of Grebes, with their curious plumage and floating nests, Australia boasts the possession of about as many as are found in Europe. There are two Sheldrakes and but few varieties of Ducks. Under this family comes also our only swan a meagre representative of that lordly tribe, but famous by reason of its dusky plumage. The stately Pelican with his pouch and wonderful manner of fishing must not be forgotten. Under the common name of Geese are several varieties belonging to the family Anaticlce, notably the Cereopsis Goose, so frequently mentioned by the early explorers, with its feeble powers of Hying and inability to escape pursuit, leading to its lamentably rapid destruction. The true genus Anser, the Goose, is also unrepresented. Taking first our weakest points in this Order, compared with other countries, the Mergansers, Guillemots and Puffins, which are so plentiful in other latitudes, are absent. Still, a general survey of the oary-footed kinds which inhabit our fresh waters, shows that we possess many strange and interesting species of these birds, while our coast, with the great extent of latitude which it spans, gives habitation to a great and varied multitude of them. MHE want of many great rivers and lakes in Australia may account for the absence of a considerable number of the more valuable or famous varieties of aquatic birds which are found in other continents blessed with larger inland seas.
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