REPORT ON THE BIRDS — STEGANOPODES AND IMPENNES. 131 



and rest a while, and see in what direction you have been going, how far you have got, 

 and in what direction you are to make the next plunge. Then when you are refreshed 

 you make another rush, and so on. 



" If you stand quite still, so long as your foot is not actually on the top of a nest of 

 eggs or young, the Penguins soon cease biting at you and yelling. I always adopted the 

 stampede method in rookeries ; but the men usually preferred to have their revenge, and 

 fought their way every foot. 



" Of course, it is horribly cruel thus to kill whole families of innocent birds ; but it is 

 absolutely necessary. One must cross the rookeries in order to explore the island at all, 

 and collect the plants, or survey the coast from the heights. 



"These Penguins make a nest which is simply a shallow depression in the black dirt, 

 scantily lined with a few bits of grass, or not lined at all. They lay two greenish-white 

 eggs about as big as duck eggs, and both male and female incubate." 



Six eggs from Inaccessible in the collection are of a uniform pale greenish-white, and 

 measure 2"4 by 1*9 inches. 



Mr Murray's notes on this Penguin are as follows : — 



" We saw these birds at Tristan, at Inaccessible Island, and at Nightingale Island. In 

 Inaccessible Island we found a Penguin rookery, over 3 acres in extent. It is situated on 

 a flat to the north, covered with tall tussock-grass (Spartina), and about 14 feet above 

 the level of the sea. 



" The tussock-grass was from 7 to 8 feet high, and the Penguins' nests were situated 

 about the roots of the clumps of grass. In 2 square yards I counted as many as six 

 nests. At the times of our visit the birds were sitting on their eggs and young. Most 

 frequently there was but one egg, but sometimes we found two. 



" The nests were simply a slight hollow scraped in the dark earth at the base of the 

 tufts of grass. 



" On Nightingale Island we found a rookery which I estimated to cover from 40 to 50 

 acres. This was also situated chiefly on a flat covered with tall tussock-grass, and about 

 40 feet above the sea level. Some of the nests of the Penguins were situated fully 150 

 feet above the sea, and some of them were nearly one-quarter of a mile inland from the sea. 



" In both these rookeries there were two or three main entrances from the sea. We 

 did not see rookeries on Tristan, but we got some of the birds. All the birds on this 

 Tristan group had the yellow superciliary plumes considerably longer than that of those 

 got at Kerguelen and the Falklands. They also all seemed to me rather bigger birds. 

 The Tristan birds are, I think, a well-marked variety. Their stomachs had remains of 

 crustaceans, and occasionally fish. 



" At the Falklands and at Kerguelen we found the rookeries along the shores amono- 

 rocks, and at the latter island in vast numbers. During our visit at Kerguelen (all 

 January 1874) they were sitting on their eggs and young. We put one of these birds in 



