212 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [April 



water-level, carrying the boats with it ; and then, as it was 

 impossible to commence rescuing operations till the daylight 

 returned, we were forced helplessly to watch them getting into 

 a worse and worse plight. 



On the night of the 8th there was a great Emperor penguin 

 hunt. ' It was blowing half a gale of wind, and the snow was 

 driving rapidly past when someone espied a company of digni- 

 fied " Emperors " advancing towards the ship. Our zoologist 

 pointed out that here was the chance to complete our collection 

 of skins, as the birds would now be in their finest plumage ; 

 and in spite of the weather a large party had soon surrounded 

 the unfortunate birds. I was not present myself, but I hear 

 there was much excitement. It is no easy matter to hold an 

 Emperor ; they are extraordinarly strong both in their legs and 

 flippers, and are capable of moving even with a man on top of 

 them. They could of course have been clubbed, but this 

 would have damaged them as specimens. The proper method 

 was to get hold of them firmly and give the coup de grace in a 

 scientific manner by inserting the blade of a penknife at the 

 base of the skull. The confusion in the dark, when everyone 

 was trying to capture a bird and these powerful creatures were 

 dashing in every direction, can better be imagined than 

 described. Report says that frequently one man was trying to 

 capture another under the impression that he was a penguin, 

 and more than one of the party seem to have been temporarily 

 floored by the wild dashes of the intended victims. It was 

 late at night before sufficient specimens had been slain, and 

 then the party returned with a plentiful supply of frost-bites, 

 of which they had been quite oblivious in the excitement of 

 the chase.' The above scene may sound somewhat blood- 

 thirsty, but it is just to remark that we never slew animals 

 except for the practical object of obtaining food or specimens 

 or both ; and, indeed, the more we came to see the extra- 

 ordinary, unsuspicious tameness of the animal life about us, 

 the more compunction we were forced to feel at the necessity 

 of killing at all. It was difficult to realise at first the full 

 extent of this tameness — one is so little accustomed to total 



