midday
`` King penguin '' is another of its names , from its superior size , as it is the largest of the auk or penguin family . A pair of penguin `` squabs '' makes an ample dinner for the entire party , nor is it without the accompaniment of vegetables ; these being supplied by the tussac-grass , the stalks of which contain a white edible substance , in taste somewhat resembling a hazel-nut , while the young shoots boiled are almost equal to asparagus . -LSB- Note 1 . -RSB- While seated at their midday meal , they have before their eyes a moving world of nature , such as may be found only in her wildest solitudes . All around the kelp-bed , porpoises are ploughing the water , now and then bounding up out of it ; while seals and sea-otters show their human-like heads , swimming among the weeds . Birds hover above in such numbers as to darken the air , some at intervals darting down and going under with a plunge that sends the spray aloft in showers white as a snow-drift . Others do their fishing seated on the water ; for there are many different kinds of water-fowl here represented -- gulls , shags , cormorants , gannets , noddies , and petrels , with several species of _ Anativae _ , among them the beautiful black-necked swan .