KERGUELEX'S LAND. 211 



they take flight, and make off, uttering their harsh note a succes- 

 sion of times. If a bird be knocked over with a stick, it is 

 usually only stunned, the Sheath-bills are very tenacious of 

 life. If the one thus caught be tied by the leg with a string 

 and allowed to flutter on the rocks, in front of one as one sits, 

 the neighbouring sheath-bills will come at once to fight with it 

 and peck it, and can be knocked over one after another. When 

 courting one another, the birds show all the attitudes of pigeons, 

 the male bowing his head up and down and strutting, making 

 a sort of cooing noise. 



The birds eat seaweed and shell-fish, mussels and limpets, 

 besides acting as scavengers, as already mentioned. They carry 

 quantities of the limpet and mussel shells up to the clefts or 

 holes under the rocks which they frequent. They readily feed 

 in confinement, and we had several on board the ship, running 

 about quite at home. One of them established itself in one of 

 the cutters for a short time, and used to take a fly round during 

 the voyage to Heard Island and return again to the ship. 



The birds, though usually to be seen running on the rocks, 

 can fly remarkably well, and their flight is like that of a pigeon. 

 I have seen them flying at a great height about the cliffs of 

 Christmas Harbour. 



A Tern {Sterna virgatat), the "Mackerel-bird," "King-bird," 

 or " Kinger " of sealers, nests on the ground amongst the grass, 

 laying a single egg, just like that of other terns. When a nest is 

 approached the old birds are very bold, and fly round the head 

 of the intruder, uttering a sharp cry. Their young are brown 

 and remarkably like a thrush at first glance were it not for the 

 web feet. When I saw one for the first time I thought a Land- 

 bird had been found in Kerguelen, but such certainly does not 

 exist except the Sheath-bill, if it can be considered as such. It 

 is, however, worthy of note here, that in Antipodes Island, which 

 lies south-east of New Zealand and a little nearer the South 

 Pole than Kerguelen's Land, parroquets are abundant, although 

 the island is covered with tussock,* and without trees. 



* "Notes on the Geology of the Outlying Islands of New Zealand. 

 Reported by Dr. Hector, F.R.S." Trans. N. Zealand Institute, Vol. II, 

 1869, p. 176. 



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