BIRDS OF THE AUSTRALASIAN SOUTH POLAR QUADRANT. 
and there, collected sometimes at the smaller end, sometimes in the middle, and sometimes 
being absent altogether. In one or two specimens the shell is secreted irregularly, so 
that raised streaks or faint ridges appear running down the shell from one end to the 
other; the surface is therefore coarse in texture, rough and carunculated, until 
weathered, when it presents an unusually 7 smooth and polished appearance with the 
longitudinal pores particularly noticeable. Measurements : 110 to 131 mm. by 75-85 mm. 
Weight of a large egg slightly 7 incubated just short of one pound (448'5 grms,). 
Breeding-season. Eggs probably laid in July and hatched out after seven weeks incubation. 
Young bom in early September or late August. 
The following life history is taken from Dr. E. A. Wilson, in his account of the 
National Antarctic Expedition, published in 1907. 
Our first introduction to the Emperor Penguin, the largest and the hand¬ 
somest of all living Penguins, occurred on January 4th, 1902, when we had 
entered the pack ice and were making the best of our way towards open water 
again to the south. The birds were scattered here and there, singly or in couples, 
and much to our surprise we found that almost all were imm ature. It was 
not until we had worked our way through the pack ice, and had begun to coast 
along South Victoria Land, that we realised that we had left the region 
frequented by the immature, and had come amongst adult birds. Afterwards, 
we saw still fewer until we came to the fast ice of King Edward VII.’s Land 
at the extreme eastern end of Ross Barrier. Here in a bay, while the ship 
was beset with new ice, we first began to suspect that we were nearing the 
Emperor’s breeding haunts. Away in the distance, over some miles of dis¬ 
integrating ice-floe, could be seen large companies of birds which, when viewed 
through the telescope from the crow’s nest, proved to be Emperor Penguins. 
Nine months later we discovered that the Emperor Penguin lays and 
incubates its eggs through the winter darkness ; that the chicken emerges 
from the egg at the beginning of September ; that it has shed its down and 
taken up an existence, independent of its parents, by the middle of January. 
The party which arrived at Cape Crozier on November 8th was surprised 
to find that all the chickens hatched that year had disappeared. Again and 
again they put large packs of Emperors on the run, but not a living chicken could 
be found. We gathered that the eggs were laid and hatched in all probability 
on the sea-ice. 
It appears then that in the Emperor Penguin we have a bird which not only 
cannot fly, and lives on fish vdiich it catches by pursuit under water, but which 
never steps on land or on land-ice, even to breed, and has so modified its habits 
that it carries out the whole process of incubation on sea-ice, choosing those 
months of the Antarctic year when the greatest cold ensures a solidity of 
sea-ice which can be trusted. 
The next thing was to find out the breeding months. The only data that 
we possessed was that on October 18th of the previous year there were chicks 
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