IN WINTER QUARTERS WITH CAPTAIN SCOTT 245 



Breeding. — The Emperor lays one egg and incubates it between the 

 feet and the breast-flap. The Johnny penguin seems to have the same 

 habit. The Adelie scratches a bare hole in gravel. The Crested 

 penguin makes a grass nest, while the Jackass burrows. 



Migration. — The Antarctic penguins spend about eight months on 

 shore and four on the pack-ice. They usually remain within fifty 

 miles of land. 



The Adelies arrive in Ross Island in mid-October, the scouts pre- 

 ceding the main army by some ten days. After about ten days choosing 

 nests the first egg is laid, and then the second soon after. They are 

 hatched in a month. 



Feathers. — The Emperor chick has two sets of down feathers. The 

 earliest is pushed off at the end of the new feather in a few days. And 

 then the final feather forms the base of the down feather. 



The Adelie moults at the end of February. 



Food. — The Adelie gathers a crop full of shrimps, and then has to 

 run the gauntlet of all the chicks to reach his own nest. You can see 

 his terror that none will be left for his own, for they are meanwhile 

 digesting ! The young birds remain on land until starvation drives 

 them to the water. It is inexplicable how they know where to go ! 



The Emperor lives on fish, and so has a different-shaped beak. 

 They obtain their food by diving down through cracks in the Barrier 

 ice. For one adult hatching an egg there are a dozen unoccupied. 

 And there is such a rush to claim a lonely chicken that the latter 

 simply hates the whole proceeding ! 



Three-quarters of the chicks have died by the end of October. 



From our visit to Cape Crozier in 191 1 we know that the young 

 do not shed their down till January. The bay ice is moving out all 

 summer. By January most of it has gone north, and the penguins 

 have gone with it. The chickens are not fit to enter the water in 

 their down-feathers, and after their free ride north they live on the 

 pack-ice for some weeks before commencing to swim. 



Penguins swim under water, and breathe with open beaks as they 

 make their frequent "dolphin " leaps. 



The dogs and ponies turned up from Hut Point on the 

 13th — just a month after we left them there. Meares arrived 

 first. He had been lost in the drift, but had wisely coasted 

 along by Turk's Head and got through all right. We wel- 

 comed them with their favourite gramophone records. " They 

 all went into the Shop ' to cheer Meares, and then " Pre- 

 historic Man " to see how exactly Huntley's voice agreed with 

 Nelson's ! 



Dr. Atkinson started testing us for scurvy. We sub- 

 mitted our first fingers, and he jabbed them with a pointed 

 glass tube till the blood flowed. I grieve to state my thick 



