On the Natural History of Kerguelen s Island. 89 



dimensions were carefully taken by one of the boat'screw, and there- 

 fore it \\ill be easily identified. 



Young Sea-Elephants were frequently found by us in Swain's 

 Bay. Some examples are uniformly reddish brown, others are pale, 

 blotched and spotted \Aith darker grey. They usually lie just above 

 the beach, separately, in hollows among the Accena and Azorella, 

 where they are sheltered from the wind. On being approached 

 they make no attempt to move awaj' (possibly because there are 

 no land animals indigenous to the country capable of molesting 

 them to cause them to acquire a habit of flight), but raise up the 

 fore part of their body, open the mouth ^\-ide, and utter a peculiar 

 slobbering cry. My mammalian specimens, unfortunately, are not 

 so complete as they were when first procured, owing to the im- 

 possibihty of preventing "liberty men" and others taking an in- 

 terest in such " great curiosities " whilst the process of cleaning 

 them was in progress. The removal of stones, purposely laid 

 upon some of the bones, led to the loss of the fore limbs of seals, 

 &c., which were blown away by the ^^^nd. 



All of the birds, \\ ith the exception of two species (a Procellaria 

 and a Thalassidroma), are represented in the Cape-town Museum. 



Thalassidmma Wilsoni (Dr. Wy\'ille Thomson, however, seems 

 to consider the Kerguelen-Island bird to be another species) 

 arrived in the Sound in great numbers a few days before the 

 " Transit." Towards the end of January they commenced laying 

 their eggs generally. By the second and thii-d weeks of February 

 the incubation of the eggs was usually far advanced ; and a day 

 or two before we left the island, Capt. Fairfax sent me a young 

 bird recently hatched. The tarso-metatarsal joint is not elongated 

 in the chick. I failed to find the eggs of Thalassidroma mdano- 

 gasti'r ; the birds occurred to me only in pairs. 



It may be well to explain that Petrels sit in their holes in pairs 

 until the egg is laid. Then usually only one bird is found at a 

 time upon the nest until the young are hatched ; and soon after 

 they have issued from the egg the young are found alone during 

 the day. For whilst incubation is in progress, the bird not upon 

 the nest is either asleep in a siding or branch of the burrow or (more 

 commonly) is spending the day at sea ; and when the young are a 

 day or two old, both of the parents absent themselves during the 

 day, and only return at night for the piu-pose of feeding them. 



Along the coast, outside Swain's Bay, a few examples of Bio- 

 medea melanoiyhrys, a species not observed in Royal Sound, were 

 noticed. 



In the less frequented parts of the island some of the birds 

 were unusually fearless and tame. Shags would submit to be 

 stroked along the back without getting off their nests or attempting 

 to peck the hand. More than once Sheathbills, and on one oc- 

 casion a Skua, fed out of my hand. A Sheathbill, after pecking 

 at my boots, ate in succession six eggs held out to it. But the 

 Skua behaved in a still more extraordinary manner. On ap- 

 proaching within throe hundred yards of the nest it was evident, 



