374 POLAR PROBLEMS 



birds {Pachyptila), the diving petrels (Pelecanoides), and a number of 

 closely related cormorants are examples. 



Some of the penguins are south temperate in range, and at least 

 two species are exclusively tropical, if latitude rather than temper- 

 ature of the sea water be made the test. No penguin of the genus 

 Spheniscus reaches sub-Antarctic shores, the often repeated record of 

 5. magellanicus at South Georgia being due to a misinterpretation of 

 the vernacular name "jackass penguin" which Weddell applied to 

 Pygoscelis papua. 



In keeping with the general features of the biota of cold oceans, 

 the austral marine bird life is relatively poor in species but enormously 

 rich in individuals. The flocks of several kinds of sub-Antarctic 

 petrels beggar description. Rudmose Brown^^ mentions a rookery of 

 a million Adelie penguins on Graptolite Island, South Orkneys, and 

 one of two hundred thousand ringed penguins at Route Point. Maw- 

 son^* speaks of a colony of royal penguins covering i6^ acres at Mac- 

 quarie Island and comprising about three-quarters of a million birds. 

 He refers also to the legalized destruction by oil hunters of three hun- 

 dred thousand penguins per annum at the same island. 



Need for More Extensive Ornithological Data 



Our ultimate understanding of the distribution of birds in the 

 circumpolar oceanic area is bound up with far more extensive col- 

 lecting, with broad taxonomic work such as only satisfactory collec- 

 tions can make possible, and with bringing to bear an "oceano- 

 graphic" point of view in considering the reactions of the living birds. 

 The terrestrial life of these creatures, as is sometimes forgotten, is 

 reduced to a minimum; their ranges appear to be circumscribed, in 

 the main, by the same set of factors which control other pelagic or- 

 ganisms, and detailed study of their marine ecological relationships 

 promises fruitful outcome. 



As regards collecting, it is certain that no adequate series of 

 Antarctic or sub-Antarctic specimens, representing forms from the 

 entire breeding range of a single genus, have yet been brought to- 

 gether. Taxonomic studies, especially those pertaining to species 

 and races of the sub-Antarctic islands, have thus far been made at 

 random, a fact which we realize today far more than was realized a 

 few decades ago, when the famous Catalogue of Birds of the British 

 Museum and subsequent monographs were published. From year to 

 year since that time new material has seeped in little by little to mu- 

 seums in a score of countries, and piecemeal systematic studies have 

 revealed intricate diversity among the species or lesser units of certain 



^2 Work cited in footnote 25, above. 



■•^ Douglas Mawson: Macquarie Island, Proc. i?oyaZ Ceogr. Soc. of Australasia: South Australian 

 Branch, Vol. 20, 1921, pp. 71-85. 



