224 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [Dec. 



away, and he watched the parent birds and their young leave 

 their rookery and station themselves in batches near the edge 

 of the ice-sheet. In due course a piece of ice on which a batch 

 stood was broken off, and slowly sailed away to the north with 

 its freight of penguins, and there can be no doubt that in this 

 manner these curious creatures are transported for many hun- 

 dreds of miles until the chicks have attained their adult 

 plumage and can earn their own living. 



Wilson spent twelve days at Cape Crozier, and probably at 

 what is the most interesting season of the year in that region. 

 Whilst the steady emigration of parties of Emperor penguins 

 went on day after day, a little further to the west there was an 

 equally steady immigration of Adelie penguins now coming 

 south to lay their eggs on the lower slopes of Mount Terror. 

 Both these movements were evidently dependent on the 

 seasonal change which was taking place, for on his arrival 

 Wilson found the Ross Sea frozen over, and on precisely the 

 same date as on the previous year a series of S.W. gales com- 

 menced, and swept the sea clear, giving at once a chance for 

 the Emperors to go and the Adelies to come. Such a long 

 stay as this party made was only rendered possible by a lucky 

 find of seals on the sea-ice, these animals providing them with 

 food and fuel. As this was the only time that our sledge parties 

 cooked their meals with a blubber fire, I quote from Wilson's 

 report : ' We killed a seal and brought the whole skin to camp. 

 It was cut into three long strips with all the blubber on, and 

 to each was tied a piece of line. Each of us had one strip to 

 manage in crossing the pressure ridges. When we reached 

 camp a stove was improvised outside the tent by Whitfield and 

 Cross ; it was made out of an old tin biscuit box, which had 

 been left on a previous journey, and some stones, and in this 

 we eventually succeeded in lighting a blubber fire, over which 

 we cooked our supper.' 



Altogether this journey to Cape Crozier was more produc- 

 tive of information than any of its predecessors, for Wilson 

 by no means confined himself to his zoological studies. He 

 climbed high on the foothills of Mount Terror and discovered 



