DOMESTIC LIFE 



but as this disappeared, they suffered greatly, as 

 was made evident by the way they lay with beaks 

 open and tongues exposed between them. (Fig. 

 30.) As time went on the cocks started to make 

 short journeys to the drifts which still remained in 

 order to quench their thirst, but the hens stuck 

 manfully, or rather "henfully" to their posts, 

 though some of them seemed much distressed. 

 Later, those cocks which had nested in the centre 

 of the rookery had quite long journeys to make in 

 order to find drifts, a very popular resort being that 

 which had formed in the lee of our hut, and all day 

 streams of them came here to gobble snow. Once 

 a cock was seen to take a lump of snow in his beak 

 and carry it to his mate on the nest, who ate it. 



Mr. Priestley tells me that when he was at Cape 

 Royds in 1908 he saw cocks taking snow to hens 

 on their nests. This procedure would seem to be 

 different to the parental instinct which governs the 

 feeding of the young, and it seemed to show that 

 the cock realized that the hen must be thirsty and 

 in need of the snow, and kept this fact in mind 

 when he was away from her. Another point to 

 note is that the occurrence was a very rare and, in 

 fact, exceptional one. 



When conditions arose which were new to their 



57 



