6o Field Naturalists' Club — Proceedings. [v^"^''xxxv 



life-histories of the birds. The one-year-old birds return to 

 the rookeries early in January, the date of arrival being almost 

 identical each year. The parent birds arrive in August in order 

 to lay their eggs, and it is remarkable that, though the young 

 birds do not arrive till five months later, they instinctively 

 seek out and attach themselves to the parent birds' nests, 

 while the parent birds will, whenever possible, occupy the nest 

 they occupied on the previous visit. The nest, if it can be so 

 called, consists merely of a few stones and rubbish scratched 

 together ; in this a single egg is laid. The egg is afterwards 

 supported on the feet of the bird and covered by an expansion 

 of the abdomen, which seems to take the place of the pouch 

 in the marsupials. When the old birds are taking the young 

 to sea for the first time, should the water be rough, they are 

 able to discharge a quantity of oil from a special gland, and 

 by means of this oil the water is calmed, and the young birds 

 are able to take their first swimming lesson in comfort. The 

 elephant seals, or sea-elephants — so called from the projecting 

 upper lip of the animal, which may be likened to a proboscis — 

 are found only on the west coast of the island, where they land 

 during August for the purpose of changing their coats, which 

 is done almost as completely as by a snake. These seals 

 average from 15 to 20 feet in length. He emphatically denied 

 that anything more than necessary cruelty occurred with regard 

 to the penguin-oil industry, and asserted that, after twenty 

 years of working, the birds were just as numerous as ever, and, 

 as a matter of fact, the birds received a certain amount of 

 protection from his operations, for the Skua Gulls sought every 

 opportunity to secure the penguins' eggs, and had to be kept 

 down by shooting. 



On conclusion of the lecture a number of questions were 

 asked, from which it was elicited that the birds are killed by 

 being knocked over by heavy sticks ; that the kilhng season 

 lasted about six weeks, during which perhaps 1,500,000 birds 

 were killed, and yet there would be no diminution the next 

 year ; and that the pictures shown had been taken some 

 twelve years ago. 



Prof. Sir Baldwin Spencer said that he had listened to the 

 lecture with interest because he wished to call attention to the 

 great destruction of bird-life going on at Macquarie Island, 

 and, notwithstanding the lecturer's statement, he had Sir 

 Douglas Mawson's message in mind — " Can you do nothing 

 against the slaughter that is going on at Macquarie Island ? " 

 He thought the Club should approach the Tasmanian and New 

 Zealand Governments and request that the proceedings at 

 the island be placed under some kind of supervision. 



Mr. Hatch denied the allegations of Sir D. Mawson, who, he 



