NEVER AGAIN 559 



instead of the record. Gran said he would go back and 

 change it. He had reached the top when there was a loud 

 explosion : large blocks of pumice were hurled out with a 

 big smoke cloud; probably a big bubble had burst. Gran 

 was in the middle of it, heard it gurgle before it burst, 

 saw " blocks of pumiceous lava, in shape like the halves of 

 volcanic bombs, and with bunches of long, drawn-out, hair- 

 like shreds of glass in their interior." 1 This was Pele's 

 hair. Gran was a bit sick from sulphur dioxide fumes after- 

 wards. They reached Cape Royds on the 1 6th, the very 

 successful trip taking fifteen days. 



Meanwhile Shackleton 's old hut was very pleasant at this 

 time of year : in winter it was a bit too draughty. With bright 

 sunlight, a lop on the sea which splashed and gurgled under 

 the ice-foot, the beautiful mountains all round us, and the 

 penguins nesting at our door, this was better than the Beard- 

 more Glacier, where we had expected to be at this date. 

 What then must it have been to the six men who were just re- 

 turned from the very Gate of Hell ? And the food : " Truly 

 Shackleton's men must have fed like turkey-cocks from all 

 the delicacies here: boiled chicken, kidneys, mushrooms, 

 ginger, Garibaldi biscuits, soups of all kinds : it is a splen- 

 did change. Best of all are the fresh-buttered skua's eggs 

 which we make for breakfast. In fact, life is bearable with 

 all that has been unknown so long at last cleared up, and 

 our anxieties for Campbell's party laid at rest." 2 



For three weeks I worked among the Adelie penguins 

 at Cape Royds, and obtained a complete series of their 

 embryos. It was always Wilson's idea that embryology 

 was the next job of a vertebral zoologist down south. I 

 have already explained that the penguin is an interesting 

 link in the evolutionary chain, and the object of getting 

 this embryo is to find out where the penguins come in. 3 

 Whether or no they are more primitive than other non- 

 flying birds, such as the apteryx, the ostrich, the rhea and 

 the moa, which last is only just extinct, is an open question. 

 But wingless birds are still hanging on to the promontories 

 of the southern continents, where there is less rivalry than 



1 Scoti's Last Expedition, vol. ii. p. 356. 2 My own diary. 3 See p. 234. 



