482 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



on the icebergs. If two groups happen to meet, the leaders bow to 

 each other, lowering their beaks on their breasts; remaining in this 

 position, they hold a long discourse; then, compliments having be^n 

 exchanged, they raise their heads and describe a great circle with 

 their beaks. They act in the same way toward men, who generally 

 have great difficulty in understanding this mimicry, obliging the 

 penguin to begin over again. 



The habits of this penguin are very different from those of the 

 birds that we have just considered. The mode of reproduction is 

 very peculiar, and has been ably studied by Mr. Wilson, naturalist 

 of the Discovery expedition. It occurs in the dead of winter, in the 

 middle of the polar night, at the end of June in cold that may reach 

 50 C.° below zero when the Emperors gather together near the conti- 

 nent, on a solid iceberg, to lay a single egg. There are no prepara- 

 tions, no nest. 



To keep the egg off the ice, the penguin places it on his feet, held 

 between his legs, protected by a fold of skin covered with feathers 

 at the base of the abdomen. As the incubation lasts nearly two 

 months, the birds, of which not many are engaged in brooding, 

 pass the egg to one another in turn. At the beginning of September 

 the young is hatched. As there is only one chick to ten or so adults, 

 and as every one of the latter wishes to brood, there is much jostling 

 and struggling to get possession of the little one, that brings upon 

 the poor creature unintentional wounds, sometimes causing its 

 death. 



Toward the end of October migration toward the north takes 

 place, the birds letting themselves be carried off on fragments of ice 

 broken from the iceberg; the chicks, still covered with down, are 

 carried by their parents. In January they lose this down and from 

 this time on they provide for themselves. 



While the young live on the outskirts of the icebergs the adults 

 return south to seek solid ice on which they go to molt, then in the 

 month of June they come together again, and the cycle that we 

 have just briefly described begins anew. 



We have been obliged to pass very rapidly over the study of these 

 birds, of which we have been able to give only a slight sketch. 



But it is easy to understand that the Antarctic region possesses a 

 distinct avian fauna, characterized by several very remarkable 

 zoological types, and presentmg very nearly the same composition 

 throughout its extent. Different members of this fauna extend to 

 very variable distances over certain adjacent lands, in such a way 

 as to exert a greater or less influence on the characteristics of the 

 ornithological population of neighboring regions. 



