28 EDWARD A. WILSON. 
measurements which are almost identical with those of the King Penguin’s egg to measure- 
ments which are almost half as long and half as wide again. The smallest of the series 
of fourteen eggs procured by our expedition at Cape Crozier measures 10°7 cm. in length 
and 8°0 cm. in breadth (see fig. 1., Pl. VI.); but there are three eggs which measure 
less in breadth, one being 7°5 cm. across, and the other two7°7 cm., though their length 
is in each case greater, namely, 11°0 cm., 110 cm., and 12°8 cm. respectively. These 
figures will give some idea of the variability that exists in the proportionate length 
and breadth of the eggs, some indeed being long and narrow, and others broad and 
squat, but all distinctly pyriform. The largest of the series in question measures 
13°1 em. in length, and has a breadth of 8°3 cm. (see fig. 1, Pl. VII.), but there is 
yet another which, though measuring only 12°8 cm. in length, has a breadth of 8°6 cm. 
It is therefore clear that there is a wide range both in actual and in proportionate 
measurements, even in a limited series of eggs from one breeding colony—a fact which 
may have some bearing upon the age of individuals, if, as I believe to be the case, the 
younger produce smaller eggs than the older birds. If the age of the laying birds and 
the size of the eggs they lay increase proportionately, one may argue that where the 
eggs of a single species vary much in size, there must be a corresponding difference in 
the age of the individuals ; and so, further, that as some of its eggs are nearly half as 
big again as others, the Emperor Penguin must be a bird of considerable longevity. 
This, however, is a supposition which can be made only in the form of a suggestion. ’ 
It is upheld by very few facts, so far as I can ascertain, from the natural difficulty 
there is in getting a series of eggs from a single bird of any species from year to year. 
But in the solitary case of a Buzzard (Buteo vulgaris) in which I have seen the eggs 
laid year by year by the same hen, their size very gradually increased,* and the same 
observation has been made often enough in the poultry yard with domestic hens. 
Previous to our discovery of the Emperor Penguin’s rookery at Cape Crozier in 1902 
there was but one egg in any known collection which was supposed to be the egg of an 
Emperor Penguin. ‘This was in the collection of Mr. Walter, of Drayton House, 
Norwich, and its history, for the details of which I am indebted to him, and to Mr. T. 
Parkin, of Hastings, is as follows. 
It was brought to Paris from the Antarctic in 1838 by the French South Polar 
Expedition under Dumont D’Urville. In 1840 or 1841 it was bought in Paris by 
Dr. (afterwards Sir) Henry Alfred Pitman, who sold his entire collection five years later to 
the late Mr. H. F. Walter, of Papplewick Hall, Notts. At his death the collection 
passed into the possession of his son, by whom it was removed to Drayton House, 
Norwich, where the egg in question now lies. This Drayton egg it has been my 
privilege, through the courtesy of Mr. Walter, to examine and compare with those 
from Cape Crozier, and I have no doubt now, even if there had been any real doubt 
before, that it is the egg of an Emperor Penguin. It measures 10°9 cm. in length, 
* T have to thank Mr. O,. H. Latter, of Charterhouse, for kindly drawing my attention to this series, which is 
at present in the school museum. 
