KtTNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 40. N:0 5. 57 



»The four parental birds which hacl escaped from the yoting, kept on board 

 the anchored vessel, were seen on the beach near the hen-coop. ' They went round 

 among the fowls, picked of their food and caught fishes as well at the sea shore. 

 They passed the nights in piles of boards near the hen-house. In daytime -I 

 used to feed them with fish, and they took the food from my hand as readily 

 as the hens, being just as tame as they. On the roof of the hen-house I had 

 a smal] box eontaining fish for the Chionis and they went there, too, to feed. At 

 daytime they sometimes made long excursions över the fjord bufc ahvays returned to 

 the hen-house in the evening. Now and then they also paid a visit on the anchored 

 vessel in Boiler Harbour, and were fed there, too. They remained at the establish- 

 ment till the middle of April but then they disappeared completely, only paying a 

 short visit now and then.» 



YVhen the young ran on even ground it appeared to Sörling that it resembled 

 a young partridge or quail (Pl. XII fig. 49). The old birds remind one, he says, 

 in their movements sometimes of a galhnaceous bird, sometimes of a pigeon (conf. 

 Pl. III fig. 8, 9 & 11), but when they sit quiet, they carry the body more erect. 

 Their favourite attitude is to sit on one leg, and they may sometimes retain that 

 position for hours. 



The downy young of Chionis is represented on Pl. I. It is a very pretty little 

 bird. The ground-colour is bluish ash, lighter and more bluish above, darker and 

 more grey below. The back is mottled with longer tufts of yellowish brown down. 

 On the sides the longer down is partly buff, partly blackish brown. Below the lighter 

 and longer down is still paler, buffish white. The head is finely mottled with sandy 

 buff on blackish brown. There is a wide bare space from the gape and below the 

 eye. The lower eyelid is whitish. In the scapular region the first white feathers 

 appear. In the next stage the greater coverts and the tips of the quills begin to 

 show their white colour. Then white feathers on the flanks and the tips of the tail- 

 feathers appear. In the oldest of the young birds of this material the white feathers 

 of the back and, in a lesser degree, those of the belly and legs begin to be developed, 

 but none on head or neck. 



In its natural condition Chionis alba feeds on South Georgia, according to Sör- 

 llng, on fishes, molluscs, and algse, »especially a kind of small green algse growing 

 on the stones laid dry at low tide> (Ulvacce?). »In the.crop of the specimens caught 

 in Royal Bay I found only green vegetable m ätter, viz. of those algse just men- 

 tioned. » K. A. Andersson (8) found also that algse consist a part of its diet. It feasted 

 also on- the carcasses of seals and whales, and collected by and by in great numbers 

 round them. During the summer only such birds that bred in Cumberland Bay were 

 present, but when they had left in April, it lasted only a few weeks till Chionis 

 birds began to appear again, and it was then that they became so numerous, and 

 remained so the whole winter. 



Sörling ne ver saw any Chionis steal eggs from penguins or other birds. His 

 observations agree therein with those of von den Steinen {12). 



1 Captain Laeses had bronght with him some fowl. 



K. Sv. Tet. Akad. Handl. BaDd 40. N:o 5. 8 



