kerguelen's land. 195 



Under the peculiar overhanging rock, on the south of the har- 

 bour, are beds of fossil wood, and the excavation beneath its 

 base is hence called Fossil- wood Cave. The wood occurs in beds 

 lying nearly horizontal, and a few feet only in thickness. 



The beds are of a soft whitish clay-like matter, which is 

 full of black vegetable remains, all apparently so charred and 

 decomposed, as to give little or no hope of any structure being 

 made out in them. 



The wood is in large trunk-like masses ; the largest which I 

 saw was about 1^ feet in diameter ; in some the bark is pre- 

 served. The wood is in various states of fossilization, some 

 of it being comparatively soft, other specimens extremely hard, 

 passing even in the centre into actual basalt, containing small 

 amygdaloidal masses of zeolites. Analcite and other zeolites 

 are abundant in the Kerguelen lavas, as are also agates.* 



On the talus slopes beneath the cliffs, along the whole south 

 side of Christmas Harbour, are vast Penguin rookeries ; the 

 Penguins here nesting amongst the stones where vegetation is 

 entirely wanting : and to the north of the harbour at its entrance 

 are other similar rookeries. Towards the upper part of the 

 harbour, the rookeries are those of the smaller crested penguin 

 called "Eock-hopper" by the sealers (Eudyptes saltator),t\\Q same 

 as that at Marion Island, but nesting scattered amongst these is 

 another kind of penguin, Eudyptes chrysolcyihiis, the Macaroni 

 of sealers. 



This bird has a most beautiful golden crest, showing con- 

 spicuously on the middle of the upper part of the head, com- 

 mencing just behind the beak, and with a plume on each 

 side as in the bi-crested species. The bird is larger than the 

 " Eock-hoppers," and is further distinguished from them by 

 the presence of a naked, somewhat tumid space, at the base of 

 the beak, which is of a light pink colour. In other colouring 

 the bird resembles the Eock-hoppers. This penguin occurs at 

 the Falkland Islands, where it nests as at Kerguelen's Land, in 

 small quantities amongst the Eock-hoppers.f 



The birds however, only thus nest amongst the other pen- 



* See J. Y. Buchanan, " Proc. E. Soc," No. 170, 1876, p. 617. 

 t " Proc. Zool. Soc, 1865," p. 527. 



2 



