148 SOUTHERN CRUISE. 
busily occupied in picking, off each other's feathers. It was an 
amusing sight to see them associated in pairs, thus employed, and the 
eao-erness with which the sailors attacked them with the oars and 
boat-hooks. They were not inclined to submit quietly to this intru- 
sion, and in some instances readily gave battle. Their manner in 
doing it was to seize the aggressor with their bill, and beat him with 
their nippers. Their bearing was quite courageous, and their retreat 
dignified, as far as their ridiculous waddle would permit. They 
were showy-looking birds, with yellow topknots, and are known as 
the Aptenodytes chryscome. 
As an accompaniment to these penguins, a small white pigeon was 
found here, quite tame. These were easily taken in numbers. They 
are not web-footed, have red legs and bills, with perfectly white 
though not fine plumage. They seem to live entirely on the dung of 
the penguin, and their flesh is black, coarse, and unpalatable. Sailing 
up the bay, they descried a sea-leopard (the Phoca leopardina Jam,) 
which Lieutenant Johnson succeeded in taking, but by an unac- 
countable mistake, the skull, &c, were thrown overboard. Its 
dimensions were also omitted to be taken. 
Knowing that Captain Foster, in the Chanticleer, had left here a 
self-registering thermometer, in 1829, I directed Lieutenant Johnson 
to look for it, and note its standing. Immediately on securing the 
tender he proceeded to search for it, but notwithstanding the particular 
directions, he did not find it. Since my return home, I have received 
a letter from William H. Smiley, master of a sealing vessel that 
touched there in February, 1842, stating that he had found the ther- 
mometer, and carefully noted its minimum temperature, which was 
5° below zero. 
Lieutenant Johnson, in company with Assistant-Surgeon Whittle, 
visited an old crater, at the head of the bay, where a gentle ascent of 
about four hundred feet brought them to the edge of an abrupt bank, 
some twenty feet high, surrounding the crater on the bay side. The 
crater was about fifteen hundred feet in diameter, from east to west, 
bounded on the west or farther side by lofty hills, with many ravines, 
which had apparently been much washed by heavy rains. This led 
to the belief that the water found within the crater would be fresh, 
but its taste, and the incrustation of salt found on its borders, showed 
that it was not so. Near the east end of the crater, the water boils in 
many places, sometimes bubbling out of the side of a bank, at others 
near the water's edge, with a hissing noise. The surface water was 
