Mr. P. L. Sclater on the Emperor Penguin. 329 



belly was of a most enormous size, and covered with a 

 quantity of fat. An oval spot of bright yellow or lemon- 

 colour appears on each side of the head, and is edged with 

 black, the rest of the body being of a blackish-grey colour 

 on the whole back and npper side, and white on the belly, 

 under the fins, and all the fore part. These birds were so 

 dull as hardly to waddle from us : we easily overtook them 

 by running, and knocked them down with sticks. When we 

 returned on board we found they were mentioned by that 

 great zoologist, Mr. Pennant, in the ^Phil. Trans.,' by the 

 name of the Patagonian Penguins, and we likewise supposed 

 them to ])e the same species which the English at the Falk- 

 land Islands have named Yellow or King." 



It is singular, however, that the Great Penguin found in 

 South Georgia at the present day is said to be not the " Em- 

 peror/' but the allied "King" Penguin {A. pennanti*) . 



In Gray's list of the specimens of A.Jursteri received by 

 the British Museum from the Antarctic Expedition, localities 

 aie attached only in two cases — " d. Female, lat. 77° S., 

 long. 180° E:," and "/. Very young, lat. 64° S." The first 

 of these localities is to the east of Victoria Land, under the 

 great perpendicular ice-barrier; the second cannot be ascer- 

 tained exactly without the longitude. But in tloss's ' Narra- 

 tive of the Expedition' (vol. ii. p. l-'8), we find the fol- 

 lowing paragraph under date Jan. 11th, 1842, when the 

 Expedition was in 156° W., C6° 65' S., to the east of Victoria 

 Land : — 



" During the last few days we saw many of the Great Pen- 

 guins, and sc^•eral of them were caught and brought on board 

 alive ; indeed it was a very difficult matter to kill them, and 

 a most cruel operation, until we resorted to hydrocyanic acid, 

 of which a tablespoonful efl^'ectuuUy accomplished the purpose 

 in less than a minute. These enormous birds varied in 

 weight irom sixty to seventy-five pounds. The largest was 

 killed by the 'Terror's' people, and weighed seventy-eight 



* Cf. Pagensteclier's "Eeport on the Birds of Soutli Georgia obtained 

 by the German I'olar Commission of 1882-83,"' iu Ik'rich. nat. Mus. 

 Hamburg, 1885, p. Ki. 



