68 EDWAED A. WILSON. 



Great Ice Barrier, we camped in lat. 80 20' S., about 170 miles from open water, and 

 150 miles from the nearest spot which we knew to be frequented by the Skuas, we 

 were surprised one day to see a bird hovering round our camp, till we realised that the 

 wind was southerly, and remembered that the night before we had killed and cut up 

 one of our sledge dogs to feed the others. Nothing but the scent of blood could have 

 brought the bird those many miles. This was on December 10th, and the same 

 thing happened again on our return when the wind was once, more southerly, and the 

 scent of blood was carried about the same distance, and brought on this occasion two 

 Skua Gulls to our camp. They remained with us two days and disappeared, leaving 

 us to finish our journey home alone. Three months of solitude were spent on this 

 journey, so completely devoid of life that this was the only bird or beast of any sort 

 that came to break it. 



On March 5th, in McMurdo Sound, we shot the first of the year's brood upon the 

 wing. It had the straw-coloured ring on the neck very imperfectly marked, and was 

 otherwise very dark all over. Its legs were piebald, black and pale bluish white, in 

 patches persisting from the normal colouration of the nestling (see Birds, Plate xiii., 

 fig. 5). This condition of things, however, was not a constant characteristic of the 

 first year's bird, for, in going through some three hundred of the adults that we shot 

 for consumption during the ensuing winter, no fewer than 20 per cent, were found to 

 have piebald legs. Moreover, on once more reaching the Auckland Islands we saw 

 precisely the same piebald legs in an individual of the larger and darker species, 

 Megalestris antarctica, and precisely the same thing may be seen also in one of the 

 examples of M. antarctica which are now to be found in the Zoological Society's 

 Gardens at Regent's Park (July, 1906). Such facts may have little significance, but 

 they are worthy of record as evidences of individual variation. This particular case is 

 possibly a reversion, and suggests that at some previous stage in their history the 

 Skuas were paler birds than they are at the present day, a suggestion one may gather 

 from the colouring of the chicks. 



The inability of these birds to appreciate danger is often very remarkable. 

 Before their departure we took heavy toll of their numbers to supply ourselves with 

 fresh meat, and a change from seal flesh during the approaching winter. There was 

 little difficulty in procuring more if the gunner was successful in dropping one, as 

 the rest immediately collected to see what was going on, their curiosity only increasing 

 with the fall of a second or a third. It is but fair to add that nothing, save the necessity 

 of taking every possible precaution against the scurvy which had appeared in our ship's 

 company, would have induced us to take such an advantage of their ignorance 

 of danger. Their courage as thieves led more than once to much amusement. On one 

 occasion a fish-trap hole was used by two of our men for fishing with hook and hand 

 line, and the proceeds of the sport were rapidly thrown behind them, a,s one after 

 another of a passing shoal of fish was landed. But, alas ! when the shoal was gone, and 

 they turned to take count of all that they had caught, there were only a few satisfied- 



