82 



BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



are inured to the heat of a tropical climate. 

 Others there are in the southern polar regions, 

 enduring persistently the most intense and 

 constant cold. But the majority live on the 

 storm-swept coasts of the rugged southern 

 continents and of the southern ocean islands, 

 where they collect, each species in his own 

 locality, and in very enormous numbers, to breed 

 and rear their young. Up to the present time, 

 these are the birds that have borne the brunt of 

 the attack made upon them for their oil ; and 

 the King Penguin, which is found on no less than 

 six different islands, is the one which, for his 

 size and weight of fat, is in greatest demand. 

 But, large and handsome as he is, the antarctic 

 Emperors are even larger and more handsome. 

 Ninety pounds is at present their record weight, 

 and birds of from 70 to 80 pounds are by no 

 means uncommon. Much light has been thrown 

 quite recently upon the breeding habits of this 

 Emperor Penguin by the work done on the 

 Discovery in the Antarctic ; and most of the 

 information brought home is, happily, indicative 

 of the continued safety of these splendid birds. 

 They breed during the darkness of the antarctic 

 winter, and hatch out their chickens during the 

 coldest month of the whole antarctic year. It 

 is true that, like other penguins, they collect in 

 thousands to form a nesting rookery, but these 

 gatherings are on sea-ice only, and by the time 

 the navigable season has begun, the birds, both 

 young and old, are widely scattered. Herein 

 naturally lies their greatest safety, and no doubt 

 they would increase enormously were it not 

 that the rigorous climate alone lays claim 

 each year to no less than 77 per cent, of all 

 the chickens hatched, before they are sufficiently 

 old to be independent of their parents. This 

 average mortality amongst the new-born chicks 

 is no mere guess, but the result of two years' 

 observation, when the dead chickens on the 

 sea-ice were actually^counted before the rookery 

 broke up at the commencement of the spring. 

 It is surprising that the adult birds should be 

 so abundant, for in a rookery which is appar- 

 ently a going concern one finds but one 

 chicken to ten or a dozen adults, and each 

 adult most anxious to nurse that one chicken — 



a condition of affairs which leads to disastrous 

 quarrels for its possession. 



In these quarrels the chicken invariably suffers, 

 and it is easy to find a rent or two in the skin 

 of those that have succumbed to their ill- 

 treatment. It is by no means an uncommon 

 sight, moreover, to see the old birds nursing 

 a dead chicken ; so strongly implanted in them 

 is the desire to sit or brood, and so often is 

 the desire unsatisfied on account of the high 

 mortality amongst the chickens. 



In the illustration which heads this paper 

 will be seen an Emperor Penguin with its 

 chicken held upon its feet to protect it from 

 contact with the ice, a habit which it shares 

 with the King, and by each bird the egg is held 

 in a similar manner throughout the period of 

 incubation. In the McQuarie Islands in Novem- 

 ber, may be seen large numbers of the King 

 Penguin, squatting on stones in a quagmire of 

 mud and water, each with an egg tucked in 

 under the abdominal skin and feathers, and held 

 upon the feet to save it from the water. In the 

 same way the Emperor keeps its egg and chicken 

 from contact with the ice on which it sits. 

 Each lays but one egg, and neither makes a 

 nest, but there is a great difference between the 

 young of these two birds which in other re- 

 spects are so surprisingly alike. They are 

 wholly different in colour, for the young King 

 Penguins, which are still abundant in the 

 rookery when the old birds are sitting on fresh 

 eggs in November, look like young bears in 

 their long brown down, whereas the young 

 Emperors are silvery white, with a head which 

 is wholly black except for a patch of white on 

 each side, including the cheek and eye. 



It is certainly unwise and untrue to say that 

 the antarctic Penguins can never need protec- 

 tion. That the Emperors are safe while they 

 breed is true, but by no means while they 

 moult, for during the summer months they 

 collect in large numbers for this purpose in 

 certain places, and wait till the moult is finished. 

 The Adelie Penguins, on the other hand, are 

 always within easy reach. Everything, of course, 

 depends upon the necessity of penguin oil for 

 certain commercial processes. If, when it can 



