PYGOSCELIS T^NIATA. 45 



crossing a cousitlerable upland meadow. Niimerons very distinct paths 

 have been worn by successive generations of penguins, until the defiles 

 cut iu the sod near the sea are, in some cases, as much as four feet in 

 depth. The track to a penguin-rookery and their landing-place are 

 always marked by a remarkably luxuriant growth of a plant with 

 long feathery fronds, belonging to the order Compositcv* The tracks 

 followed the course of a small stream in this instance, and ascended 

 pretty sharp acclivities, steep enough to try one's wind in following them 

 up, until a level plateau was reached on top of the hill. The eggs (which 

 were here never more than one to a nest) were laid either iu hollows 

 between the mounds of Azorella which covered the plateau, or iu little 

 bare spots scratched on their tops. I did not succeed in verifying the 

 statement, constantly re-affirn\jed by whalers and sealers, that the female 

 takes up her Qgg again into the oviduct, when disturbed, and carries it 

 off; but I hav^e seen a female, disturbed from the nest, drop her egg 

 again at some yards' distance when waddling off. I should suppose it 

 more probable that she carried it between the thighs (tibiae), the struc- 

 ture of which makes such a proceeding quite possible. This particular 

 rookery had been long known to the sealers, who make their rendezvous 

 some ten miles distant, at Three Island Harbor, and who had already 

 robbed the nests when we arrived ; consequently, the birds had constantly 

 been driven higher up the hill and farther inland, until, at the time of 

 our coming, they were found nesting fully half a mile from their landing- 

 place, and at an elevation of about three hundred feet. The eggs resem- 

 ble iu size and shape those of a duck, being, as a rule, rather larger. The 

 brood from which my specimens were collected must have been at least 

 the ninth or tenth laying siuce the season commenced. At other and 

 more distant rookeries, subsequently visited, where the birds had not 

 been so often disturbed, they were found to lay nearer the coast, and, as 

 a rule, two young were found to each old bird. Singularly enough, one 

 of these was always w^ell-grown, apparently from one to two mouths 

 old, while the other had just been hatched or was still in the egg. It 

 must, consequently, be the practice of these birds to rear two broods iu 

 a season, keeping both in the nest at the same time. Ko other birds 

 lay among or near them; and it seems quite impossible that the alba- 

 tross should do so in any locality, as has been made evident in describ- 

 ing the nest of that bird. 



Perhaps one hundred and tifty individuals were to be seen at a time 



* Lcptinella plumosa. 



