EMPEROR PENGUINS 



abdomen, the skin of the adults being worn bare of 

 feathers in this region. 



When hatched out, the chick is coveted by every 

 unoccupied adult, and so desperate at times are the 

 struggles for its possession that very frequently it 

 gets injured or killed by its would-be foster parents. 

 Dr. Wilson has estimated the mortality among the 

 chicks before they shed their down at 77 per cent, 

 and thinks that half this number are kUled by 

 kindness. Very often, in fact, they will crawl under 

 projecting ledges of ice, or anywhere to escape the 

 attentions of half a dozen or so of adults, all bear- 

 ing down upon them together, only to meet and 

 struggle for their possession, during which process 

 the innocent cause may get trampled and clawed to 

 death. fSo strong is the maternal instinct of the 

 Emperor, that frozen and lifeless chicks are carried 

 about and nursed until their down is worn away. 

 In fact, the scientists who visited the rookery were 

 unable to get good specimens of dead chicks, as all 

 of these had been treated in this way. 

 "^ Fortunately the Emperor chick escapes the 

 depredation of the Skua gull, which plays such 

 havoc in the Ad^lie rookeries, because the Skua does 

 not come south until the summer, by which time the 

 Emperor chicks are well grown. As in the case of 

 138 



