40 SCOT'J\S I.AS'J' KXPEDITION [July 
penguin rookery by llic sl)ip during the coming summer. 
Bui I am not blind to the difficulties there may be in 
licr doing this. 
A vciy interesting fact we saw at the rookery this 
time was that lh(;se birds are so anxious to incubate 
an egg thai they will incubate a rounded lump of ice 
instead, just as before we noticed them incubate a dead 
and frozen chick, if ihey were unable to secure a living 
one. Botlj Uowers and 1, in tlie failing light, mistook 
these rountled dirly lumps of ice for eggs, and picked 
them up as eggs before we realised what they were. One 
of tliem 1 distinctly saw dropped by a bird, and it was 
roughly egg-shajx-d and of the right si/e— liard, dirty and 
semi-translucent ice. Another was, as I thought, a 
deformed egg, and as such 1 picked it up. It was shaped 
thus : 
Too * nost cgt< * mistalcen for a (lefonncd egg. 
I also saw one of the birds return and luck one of these 
ice 'nest-eggs' on to its feci, under the abdominal flap. 
1 had a real egg in my hand, so I put it down on the ice 
close to this bird, and the bird at once left tlie lump of ice 
ai\d shullled to the real egg and pushed it in under its flap 
on to the feet. It apparently knew the diilerence, and it 
shows how strong Is the desire to brood over something. 
