Oct. 26, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



435 



Natural f^tetorg* 



PENGUINS AND MOLLYHAWKS. 

 The penguins (Aptenodytes), a sub-family of the nata- 

 torial birds, represent in high southern latitudes the 

 auks and divers of the north. Confined exclusively 

 to cold regions, they abound in the Antarctic seas, 

 and are so numerous that Dr. Bennett estimates 

 the number of these birds on one island alone 

 ■ — Macquarrie's Island, in the South Pacific — to be at 

 least from thirty to forty thousand. Sir James Clark 



Sir James and his party were nothing loth to beat a hasty 

 retreat from so inhospitable a shore. Mr. W. Dougall, 

 of Invercargill, New Zealand, seems to have had a some- 

 what similar experience in his trip with Captain Fair- 

 child in the Stella to the Auckland, Bounty, and Camp- 

 bell Islands, in January of the present year. On every 

 island they touched upon, penguins, mollyhawks, alba- 

 trosses, and ice-birds were in proud possession, and on 

 the Bounty Islands, a compact group about 130 miles 

 from the Antipodes Islands, consisting wholly of bare 

 rocks absolutely destitute of vegetation and covered 

 with guano, these birds, especially the two former, 



Penguins and Mollyhawks on the Bounty Islands. 

 (From an Instantaneous Photograph taken by Mr. W. Dougall, of Invercargill, N.Z.) 



Ross, in his " Voyage of Discovery in South and Antarctic 

 Regions," mentions the immense numbers of penguins 

 which surrounded him on all sides when he took 

 possession, in the name of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, 

 of the then newly discovered land Possession Island 

 (now known as Victoria Land). He does not seem to 

 have been greatly impressed by the appearance of the 

 new annexation ; the rocks were bare of vegetation, and 

 there was nothing to be seen in any direction but pen- 

 guin, penguin, loujours penguin. As these feathered 

 inhabitants obviously objected to any sort of interference, 

 manifesting their displeasure by vigorous pecks and 

 blows, and as the odour from the guano, the accumu- 

 lated deposit of many ages, was anything but agreeable, 



teemed in perfect myriads. Mr. Dougall succeeded intaking 

 a series of photographs of these islands, although, owing 

 to the slipperiness of the guano, he found it a matter of 

 no slight difficulty both to get the camera safely to any 

 point of vantage and to keep it steady when there. The 

 fourteen islands which form the groups average about 

 thirteen acres each in extent, and Mr. Dougall asserts that 

 there must have been at least a dozen penguins on every 

 square yard, while the water around was simply alive 

 with them. 



On the shores of South Patagonia these birds 

 abound in such numbers that 300 have been taken 

 within an hour, while in an islet in the Straits of 

 Magellan Captain Drake's crew once killed more than 



