46 MAl"«jrAUIE ISLAM' ANU ITS FUTrRE, 



where it was doubtless safer to keep to the ground than 

 battle on the wing against the ever-prevalent gales. 



The case of the specialisation exhibited on the one hand 

 by the penguins, whose wings have degenerated to mere 

 swimming appendages, and on the other by the albatross 

 class of birds, which plane on the wind without flapping 

 their wings, appears to be the direct outcome of an evolu- 

 tional development to meet the possibilities of an existence 

 in that great wind-swept region encircling the Globe north- 

 ward of the margin of the ice belt. The region between 40 

 deg. and 60 deg. south latitude is famous for its ever-blowing 

 westerlies. The existence of these winds in their present 

 strength hinges upon the continuance of the great heat 

 engine of the Antarctic ice-cap. That great ice-cap was 

 greater still in the recent past, pushing out fai-ther to the 

 north, and therefore doubtless more efficient than it is to-day 

 in keeping the southern atmosphere constantly circulating. 

 The roaring forties and the screeching fifties may have 

 then been even more formidable than is the case now. 



At least we can be sure that these winds have con- 

 tinued to blow around the earth in these latitudes for a 

 very long time in the past; under which conditions the 

 bird life would find no profit in flight by flapping the wings. 

 The two evolutional alternatives to meet the conditions 

 would be either to abandon flight altogether, and become a 

 penguin, or else to master the art of planing on the wind, 

 thus turning the very power of the storm to account, as do 

 the albatrosses and petrels. It is significant that the 

 natural range of the penguin and the albatross is just this 

 great storm-swept belt around the earth. Macquarie Island 

 is the very soul of the tempestuous south, and the natural 

 home of its specialised life. 



Now turning to the history of human occupation, we 

 find that the island has been visited from time to time since 

 the days of its discovery by vessels in search of seal pelts 

 and blubber oil. The rush during the first three or four 

 years after its di.scovery served to practically exterminate 

 the fur seal. Thereafter visitations were less frequent, 

 though the blubber oil industry appears to have been revived 

 on occasions during last century. 



Apart from the damage to fauna dircclly wrought l)y 

 these sealers, they are indirectly responsible for irrcjjarable 

 los.ses arising out of the introduction by them of the domes- 

 tic cat. The wild descendants of these felines are scat- 

 tered about the island spreading destruction amongst the 



