So here we have a very proud mother with her twins. Penguins mate for life and both parents are caregivers, taking it in turns to sit on the eggs or to forage for food. They are found only in the Antarctic, and the name is after Adele, the wife of a French explorer called Jules Dumont d`Urville, whose crew was the first to discover the species. I am not sure why there is a discrepancy in the names Adele and Adelie though.
Our original John Player Reference Book (RB.17) issued in 1950, gathers all the information that had been published in various sources. It is the final entry in the book. The description is :
205. 25 Zoo Babies. Large cards. Fronts in colour. Backs in grey with descriptive text.
A) Home issue, with I.T.C. clause. Issued October 1938
B) Channel Islands issue, without I.T.C. clause, issued December 1937.
This is intriguing, because it means the Channel Islands issue was circulating for almost a year before it appeared in on the British mainland.
Our original World Tobacco Issues Index, issued just six years later, is more concise, and simply says : "Lg. Nd. (25)" It also splits the Channel Islands off into a different section, quite a way later, and gives it the code P72-231. Though it does give a clue that there is something extra to discover by adding "see RB.17/205A" - for where there is an "A" there must be a "B", or even more letters! The updated World Tobacco Issues Index, fifty-four years later, has identical text, and also splits the Channel Islands issue off - but I forgot to write down the code for the Channel Islands version - never mind, I will have added it by Saturday