IX-2 
petrels, Wilson's; Cape Pigeons; Dominican gulls; Sheath-Dills (shags); 
Skuas; a Giant Petrel; and penguins, and penguin s! The latter appear to 
have taken over about all available rocks and islets about the Cove and 
virtually the whole of the snow-free parts of Alcock Island. These pen¬ 
guins are Chinstraps, the little fellows with the urge to climb high in 
this world of ours. Alcock's difficult and precipitous terrain reminds 
one of Cape Spigot in the Danco - Couverville Island area, but nowhere 
nearly so high, only a bit more than 300 feet, as compared with Spigot's 
938- But Alcock must be much more densely populated. Capt. McDonald who 
has reconnoitered Alcock from the air and has landed on its shores thinks 
it has more penguins on it than Cape Hallett, with its 300,000, down Mc- 
Murdo way. He said he believes it to be about the largest penguin rookery 
that he has ever seen in all his eight years of Antarctic expeke experience. 
At the foot of Alcock's precipitous slopes, the Captain found a small 
cove that would afford shelter for a, small boat. Adjacent was a piece of 
penguin-free land upon which one might build without interfering with the 
Chinstrap way of life, which includes an "awful" lot of steep uphill 
climbing for they occupy most every bit of snow-free rock on Alcock as at 
Spigot, to its very top. However, 1 would like to see the Alcock Chin- 
straps, ms well as those at Cape Spigot, left undisturbed. Anyone having 
the urge to study Chinstraps can do so in Paradise Harbor, living as did 
A. C. Bogdanovich at the Chilean Station there in 1959-1980 as an obser¬ 
ver, or even more conveniently at Deception Island where live several 
hundred thousand Chinstraps, and where comfortable accommodations may be 
found at any one of three stations, Argentine, British or Chilean. 
