298 ' THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



in 1820, and spent two years on the Crozets, 1 says that the period of incubation is seven 

 weeks, and that they commenced laying in the Crozets in November, and continued to lay, 

 if deprived of their eggs, till March. Unfortunately no close examination of the exact 

 structure of the pouch was made, and as it was not in the least suspected that this was to 

 be the only opportunity of observing the breeding habits of this bird during the voyage, 

 no brooding females were specially prepared to show it. Goodridgc compares it to the 

 pouch of a kangaroo. Probably the larger species of the genus, the Giant Penguin 

 (Aptenodytes forsteri) of the far south, which has to hatch its egg on the ice, secures it 

 from being killed by the cold in a similar manner. The birds with eggs were sitting close 

 together, and when frightened so that some were driven against the others, savage 

 fights ensued, and blood was drawn freely ; the birds whose ground was invaded striking 

 out furiously with their beaks. Pound about the brooding birds were others, apparently 

 males, in considerable numbers, who probably feed the females with which they are 

 paired. There were also some young downy birds, and if one of these latter were driven 

 in amongst the brooders it was at once pecked almost to death. The young ones utter a 

 curious whistling cry, of a high pitch and running through several notes, quite different 

 from the simple bass note of the adults. The rookery was only inhabited to about a quarter 

 of its extent, but it was strewed everywhere with the bones of the Penguins in heaps, 

 and on the verge of the rookery was a small ruined hut, without a roof, and overgrown 

 with weeds, containing an iron pot and several broken casks, and some hoop iron, 

 evidently an old sealer's hut. The sealers had probably employed their spare time in making 

 penguin oil, and perhaps taking skins, which are made up into rugs and mats at the Cape 

 of Good Hope, often only the yellow streaked part about the neck being used. Hence 

 the many bones and emptiness of the rookery. The egg of the King Penguin is more 

 than ordinarily pointed at the small end ; it is greenish-white, like other penguin eggs. 



Living also about the rookery was a flock of about thirty Sheath -bills (Chionis minor). 

 The instant they saw the party approaching they came running in a body over the floor 

 of the rookery in the utmost excitement of curiosity, up to within reach of a 

 stick, uttering a " cluck, cluck," which with them is a sort of half-inquisitive, half- 

 defiant note. Several were knocked over with big stones and sticks ; but the remainder 

 did not become in the least alarmed. They just fluttered up off the ground to avoid a 

 stone as it was sent dashing through the thick of them, but immediately pitched again, 

 and ran up, as if to see how the stone was thrown. At the rookery they were living on 

 all sorts of filth dropped by the Penguins, and were the scavengers of the place, and 

 when some of the brooders were driven off their eggs, and an egg or two got broken, the 

 Sheath-bills, who had followed closely, notwithstanding the slaughter clone amongst them, 

 came and pecked at the eggs almost between the explorer's legs. 



i Narrative of a Voyage to the South Seas, &c, by C. M. Goodridge, pp. 22, 23, London, Hamilton & Adams, 

 1833. 



