18 NATURAL HISTORY OF KERGUELEN ISLAND. 



The measurements are as follows: — 



No youug birds were found during the visit of the American party to 

 the island. 



APTENODYTES LONGIROSTRIS, Scop. (p. 30.) 



No eggs or young in the collection. It is of this genus that the state- 

 ment is made that the eggs are incubated in a sort of pouch, formed of 

 a fold of skin, and situated between the tibise. The whalers met at 

 Kerguelen Island confirm this statement; but no opportunity for direct 

 personal observation was found during the stay of the transit-party. The 

 male and female are said by the whalers to alternate in carrying the egg 

 around. 



Pygoscelis t^niata, {Peale) Coves, (p. 41.) 



Had already begun to lay September 10, selecting the top of a mound of 

 Azorella (a densely-growing plant common on the island), and scratch- 

 ing therein a shallow cavity. But one egg was found at any time in a 

 nest; yet we have good reason for believing that these Penguins rear 

 two young in a season, laying a second egg about two months after the 

 first, and before the young bird has left the nest. The eggs are 

 obtusely ellipsoid, some specimens being almost spherical ; white, with 

 a very pale greenish tint. The shell is thick, inelastic, and friable, 

 covered by a thin layer of calcareous matter that looks precisely as if 

 it had been daubed on with a coarse brush. The specimens preserved, 

 being from a rookery which has been often robbed, are doubtless 

 smaller and thinner-shelled than those of the first laying. 



