ECOLOGICAL 105 



difficulty out of the water on to the Kerguelen shore, "the vast 

 body trembles like a great bag of jelly, owing to the mass ol blubber 

 by which the whole animal is invested, and which is as thick as it 

 is in a whale". When the tremulous colossuses settle down for a 

 siesta they throw scraped-up sand over their body, for they are very 

 susceptible to sunburning ! 



Had it not been for unpardonable shortsightedness, ruthlessness, 

 and greed, there might have been to-day a much greater representa- 

 tion of the valuable sea-lions or fur-seals of the south, the Antarctic 

 representatives of the Northern Fur Seal {Otaria ursina), of whose 

 unsurpassable soft under-fur few of us are worthy. Man cannot be 

 called either an intelligent or a conscientious trustee of his kingdom ! 



In Arctic lands there is an abundance of flowers and insects, but 

 these are conspicuous by their absence in the Antarctic. The scarcity 

 of insects worth catching accounts for there being no land-birds, 

 except the sheath-bills. Also to be remembered is the rarity of 

 suitable nesting- places on the Antarctic continent, and Bruce speaks 

 of "the obvious difficulty of fragile land-birds getting to Antarctic 

 lands across the wide expanse of the stormy Great Southern Ocean". 



The white sheath-bills or kelp pigeons, which are practically the 

 only Antarctic land-birds, form a small family, perhaps linking the 

 plovers to the gulls. They fly strongly and sail beautifully over 

 the sea; on land they walk about and court like pigeons. They feed 

 on mussels and anything of that sort that they can pick up on the 

 shore, and they make rough-and-ready nests in nooks among the 

 rocks. Their name refers to a peculiar sheath on the upper bill. 



But when we pass from land-birds to sea-birds the Antarctic 

 picture changes. Not only are there several different species of 

 penguins and petrels, but the number of individuals is immense. 

 It testifies to the abundance of crustaceans in the cold waters. On 

 the South Orkneys alone there are said to be millions of penguins, 

 and over 25,000 nesting pairs of the Snowy Petrel, which sailors 

 call the Cape Pigeon. Besides penguins and petrels, both of fascinat- 

 ing interest to ornithologists, the Antarctic list of marine birds 

 includes two skuas, two terns, a gull and a shag. As an instance of 

 the insurgence of life, can anything surpass the occurrence of Arctic 

 terns as summer visitors within the Antarctic Circle— one of the 

 Scotia's notable discoveries? 



These sketches of Northern Forests, steppe-lands, and the 

 Antarctic must suffice as illustrations of one of the most interest- 

 ing and instructive lines of ecological study. 



INTER-RELATIONS OF ORGANISMS 



It is a famiUar fact of observation that living creatures have become 

 in various ways inter-linked, so that the circle of one life intersects 



