

Jlogal l(ttstttuti0n of (Bxted ISrttatn. 



WEEKLY EVENINa MEETING, 



Friday, January 27, 1905. 



Sm William Ceookes, D.Sc. F.R.S., Honorary Secretary and 

 Yice-President, in the Chair. 



Edwakd a. Wilson, Esq., M.B. F.Z.S., Naturalist on board the 

 "Discovery" in the British Antarctic Expedition, 1901-4. 



Life History of the Emperor Penguin. 



[Abstract.] 



The Emperor is the largest of all the Penguins, and is limited 

 strictly to the ice-covered regions of the Antarctic. The interest of 

 its life-history lies chiefly in the fact that its breeding ground was 

 first discovered during the recent expedition made by the " Discovery " 

 into the Antarctic. Its young and its eggs were brought home for 

 the first time when the " Discovery " returned to England in Sep- 

 tember 1904. 



In reviewing the Hf e of this bird, the difficulties of investigating 

 its breeding habits were explained as the result of certain pecuharities : 

 for example, that of laying the eggs in the middle of the winter 

 darkness ; each hen laying a single large egg, which it incubates as it 

 stands in an upright position on sea-ice, keeping the egg from contact 

 with the actual ice by holding it on the dorsum of the foot, and 

 allowing a heavily-feathered fold of skin to fall over it from the 

 abdomen, thus completely obscuring it from view, and keeping it 

 closely appressed to the abdomen, warm enough to hatch out, pro- 

 bably in some seven weeks. In the coldest month of the whole year, 

 viz. August, the chicken is hatched out, and becomes the unwilling 

 recipient of so much attention from its parents, and from such other 

 adults as have no young of their own to attend to, that upwards of 

 77 per cent, die, and may be picked up frozen on the sea-ice, within 

 the first month or two of their existence. This high death-rate is 

 in a large measure the result of the quarrels of adult birds for 

 possession of a chicken, aU having an overpowering desire to brood 

 over something. In many cases the desire leads to brooding over 

 dead chicks tiU they are actually rotten. 

 Vol. XYIII. (No. 99) b 



