THE EMPEROR PENGUIN. 5 



that suggested themselves before we could say we understood the breeding habits 

 of the bird. 



It was not till three months later, on our return from the farthest South, that we 

 learned how the first Emperor Penguin's egg, deserted, half buried in the ice, and full 

 of putrid chicken, had been found. The egg, however, was not the only result of this 

 journey. The party which arrived at Cape Crozier on November 8th was surprised 

 to find that all the chickens hatched that year had disappeared. Again and again they 

 put large packs of Emperors on the run, but not a living chicken could be found. On 

 November 10th they again went down to the rookery, and now there were hardly any 

 Emperors left at all. The migration to the North was obviously completed, but how 

 had the chicks been taken ? One thing was amply certain, that before their down was 

 shed they could not have gone by water. This problem remained unsolved till the 

 ensuing year, but there are further points in connection with this year's journeys whicli 

 must first be mentioned. 



Excellent to a degree which could hardly have been surpassed under much more 

 favourable conditions, were the photographs taken on the spot l)y Lieutenant Skelton. 

 Taken though they were at a temperature of 40° below zero, Fahrenheit, and after a 

 couple of hours' climbing over crevassed and chaotic pressure ridges of ice and snow 

 with rope and ice axes, they show, nevertheless, all the characteristics of the rookery, 

 and examples of every position assumed by the birds in sleep and incubation. 



Of the first three chickens brought back to the ship one had been picked up dead and 

 frozen on the bay ice. It had probably died within a week of emerging from the egg, and 

 had been roughly handled by the parents both before and after death. The down on the 

 head and body was nearly all worn off. The brittle frozen wings were broken. There 

 was a large rent in the skin of the neck, and marks of the old bird's claws upon the 

 body. The other two chickens had been taken alive from the parents. In these, too, 

 were a number of small cuts in the wings and a wound in the neck. But of the 

 significance of these mutilations I have more to say below. The only remains of egg- 

 shell found by the first party were such as adhered to the frozen excreta, broken bits of 

 thick white shell and membrane which had obviously been swallowed when the eggs 

 were hatched, and had become wrapped round the undigested remains of fish-lioue. 

 From this we gathered that the eggs were laid and hatched in all probability on the 

 sea-ice where the rookery was situated, and that there had not been any migration to 

 the spot after the hatching of the chicks. 



^ It appears then that in the Emperor Penguin we have a bird which not only 

 cannot fly, and lives on fish which it catches by pursuit under water, but which never 

 steps on land or on land ice even to breed, and has so modified its habits that it carries 

 out the whole process of incubation on sea ice, choosing those months of the Antarctic 

 year when the greatest cold ensures a solidity of sea-ice which can be trusted. Without 

 anticipating further the habits of the bird, I must now pass to an account of the third 

 year's journeys to the rookery. 



