II.] ANTARCTIC FAUNA 369 



And lastly, the Emperor penguin {Aptenodytes forsteri\ in 

 all probability the most primitive of all the penguins, by far the 

 largest not only in inches but in weight and width, has also this 

 trait of bygone times. He, too, sleeps upright with the tip of 

 his long curved bill tucked in behind his flipper. Exactly as in 

 a dog which turns round and round before settling down to sleep 

 upon a bare board floor, the habit has outlived the conditions that 

 called it into being, so, too, this habit of the penguin has out- 

 lived the comfortable feathering of its wings. 



It will be seen on looking at the map of the Antarctic Region 

 that the Great Ice Barrier, which runs four hundred miles east 

 and west as a continuous cliff of ice, comes to an abrupt termin- 

 ation where it impinges on Ross Island at Cape Crozier. 

 Between the rocky cliffs which rise perpendicularly five hundred 

 feet out of the sea, and the ice- cliffs which are here broken and 

 irregular in height, varying from twenty to fifty or sixty feet, lies 

 a bay with about a mile of frontage, sheltered from the southerly 

 winds and open to the north for every ray of sunshine in the 

 spring. A more perfect spot than this for shelter could hardly 

 be discovered, and so circumscribed is it in the corner between 

 land and barrier ice-cliff, that the sea-ice which is formed here in 

 March or April remains intact throughout the winter months, 

 a fixture till the general break-up occurs in the following 

 summer. 



In Ross Sea the ice that forms at the commencement of 

 winter, in March, April or even May, is unstable, and is liable 

 to be broken up by every blizzard from the South, and the ice 

 then drifts to the north to swell the belt of pack in 67° or 68° S. 

 latitude. 



But in this small bight the ice is formed to stay ; and here 

 the Emperor penguins congregate during the early winter months 

 in anticipation of their approaching duties of incubation. 



No doubt in other sheltered bays the ice remains intact as 

 well as here, and where King Edward's Land abuts on the 

 eastern extremity of the Great Ice Barrier, we entered a bay 

 with the ' Discovery ' and found ourselves not far from what 

 appeared to be an enormous rookery of Emperor penguins. There 

 were Emperors all round us — in the water and out of the water, 

 shooting up on to the ice-floes, and standing in knots on the edges 

 of the fast ice. Moreover, through the telescope in the crow's- 

 nest could be seen, about five miles distant, groups of hundreds of 



VOL. II. B B 



