234 Edward A. Wilson. 



much doubts and from the extensive distribution of Emperor 

 Penguins scattered far and wide over the Antarctic region one 

 cannot but think that the mortality in this particular rookery 

 at Cape Crozier was perhaps unusual and excessive. 



By the end of December it seems the Emperor chick is feathered 

 and independent., and in January and February the adults 

 collect in very large numbers to undergo their moult. For 

 about three weeks they remain on the ice and refuse to enter 

 the water, living the while on their abundant coat of fat. 

 After this they seem to wander in larger and smaller 

 companies, from ten to thirty and forty being met with here and 

 there on sea ice as the darkness of the winter months comes on. 

 In June they will have collected at their rookeries, and in July 

 they begin to sit, for in the first days of September, as I have 

 said above, the young ones are all hatched out, and no eggs 

 can be found but such as have been deserted. 



With this barest outline of what will before long be 

 published in detail by the Trustees of the British Museum 

 it is necessary that my Abstract be closed ; and for the same 

 reason I have purposely omitted to mention details of the 

 other birds that came under our observation in McMurdo 

 Strait, and in such other parts of the Antarctic as were 

 examined both by sea and by sledge journeys, all of which 

 will shortly appear in the full reports on the scientific work 

 of the voyage of the " Discovery." 



