ioo NATURAL SCIENCE. Feb., 



December, during which time several excursions inland were made 

 and some good birds obtained, including the curious Steamer Duck 

 Tachyeves cinereus. The author speaks of the ground being covered 

 with "heather," but corrects himself: "it was not heather on which 

 we reposed, but Empetrum rubrum, which is much the same at a 

 distance, and is a sort of crowberry . . . Diddle Dee is its local 

 name. I have a list of other plants of the islands — splendid names — 

 Gidmardia australis, Bostkovia grandiflova, and the like, and I feel 

 tempted to throw in a number here, but refrain. Neither does my 

 companion [the Naturalist of the " Balaena "] approve of such 

 inexpressive, unpopular names. Science is meant for all, not the few, 

 he says, and we should call a spade a spade and not a bally shovel as 

 the Bishop remarked " ; and this notwithstanding the author's ex- 

 pressed difficulty in enabling the "scientist" to recognise the birds 

 met with on a recent occasion, through ignorance of any but their 

 popular names. 



The Falkland Islands 1 were left on the nth of December, on the 

 15th the " Balaena " met the first sheath-bills, and the next day in 

 the afternoon the lifting of the mist disclosed to view a huge island of 

 ice estimated to be half a mile long and 200 feet high, " the top as 

 level as a billiard table." These typical Antarctic bergs soon became 

 common enough, and were sometimes many miles in extent ; their 

 beauty and delicate tints of colour are described as passing conception. 

 On the 17th the first seal was shot, the " crow's nest " was sent up, 

 and on the 23rd the first outlier of the Antarctic continent in that 

 longitude, one of the group of Danger Islands, was made. The whale 

 lines were now coiled into the boats and a lookout set for the 

 Right Whales that never came ; any number of Fin Whales of various 

 -species were seen, but the main object of the long voyage was never 

 discovered. 



The numerous penguins were a constant source of interest and 

 amusement. They were stupid in the extreme ; instead of seeking 

 safety in the water, they invariably jumped upon the ice, and even if 

 forcibly thrust into the water returned to the charge totally unac- 

 customed to the new danger, fearing man probably less than the 

 aquatic enemies which hitherto had been their only foes. Three or 

 four species of penguin were seen, including the giant " Emperor " of 

 which several were killed. Unfortunately the smaller penguins were 

 found to be fairly good eating, and great numbers of them were killed. 

 The enormous destruction of these defenceless birds that is the invari- 

 able concomitant of all these expeditions, scientific as well as com- 

 mercial, must awake in the naturalist sad fears for the speedy 

 destruction of the whole order. 



1 The reader will be glad to learn that the Company's coal-ship, about which 

 the Agent was so anxious, was not 101 days " over-due " but 101 days out ; it will 

 also be a relief to him to learn that the Glasgow ship, the crew of which were 

 "dying one by one " from scurvy, sailed three days after the "Balaena," having 

 lost only one man. 



