APPENDIX

Fig. 70. Adélie's Nests on Top of Cape Adare, to reach which they must make a Precipitous Climb of 1000 feet(Page 98)

Fig. 70. Adélie's Nests on Top of Cape Adare, to reach which they must make a Precipitous Climb of 1000 feet

(Page 98)

Up in the rookery, fully fledged youngsters could be seen clamouring in vain for food, the old birds resolutely refusing to feed them now that they were able to forage for themselves. The adultswho instructed the young in the water had finished their moult, and were themselves ready to depart. Many others, however, still wandered disconsolately about the land, some of them only half fledged, and moping under boulders or any sort of shelter from the chilly breezes, and long after all the youngsters had departed, solitary moulting birds were to be found, emaciated and miserable, patches of loose feathers still clinging to the new coat which was making such a tardy growth. In some places we found these old birds in holes under the rocks, the old moulted feathers making some sort of a bed which helped to protect their late wearers from the cold.

Both at Cape Adare in 1910 and at Inexpressible Island in 1911, I found that though young and old left the rookery simultaneously at first, yet after all the young had departed many adults still remained behind owing to the lateness of their moult, and this is directly at variance with the remarks of Mr. Borchgravink on the subject, because he says that the old birds all leave the rookery first, abandoning the young, who are driven by necessity to take to the water and learn to swim.

Well indeed was it for my companions and me that this was so, for in the autumn of 1912we were in sore straits for food, and had it not been that at a very late date we collected some ninety old moulting birds on Inexpressible Island, I doubt if we would have seen the sun rise in the next spring.

At Cape Adare in 1911, half the rookery had departed when we arrived in the autumn. The rest took to the sea in batches some hundreds strong. These parties wandered about the beach and ice-foot in company for some time, then entering the water and swimming northward they were seen no more.

Those that moulted sometimes remained solitary whilst in the acuter stages, but nevertheless moulting parties often were seen looking very miserable, doubtless feeling in their unprotected state the effects of winds which were getting keener and more severe now that the sun was departing.

When all the youngsters had gone, some thousands of old birds still remained, and waited for many days after they had acquired their full plumage before they left. Then these in time disappeared, leaving the rookery empty and desolate. On March 12 I photographed the last party: all black-throated adults. Two days later a couple appeared on the beach, apparently having comeback for a last look at us. Then these, too, disappeared, and as we looked at the empty silent beach we could not help contrasting it with the noise and bustle of a short time ago.

The last penguin had gone, and the sun disappearing below the horizon, left us alone with the Antarctic night.

APPENDIX

The following description of the plumage and soft parts ofPygoscelis Adeliæ, which is perfectly correct, is taken from the zoological report of theDiscoveryExpedition.

“Bill, when first hatched, blackish. A week old, black terminally, deep red at the gape and along the cutting edges. Immature of the first year, blackish. Adult, brick-red, the upper bill black terminally, and the mandible black along the cutting edge.

“Iris, brown; varying between reddish brown and greenish brown.

“Eyelids, black throughout the first year; pure white in the adult at fourteen months and onwards.

“Feet, flesh red; dusky when first hatched, brightening in the first week or two. Immatureand adult, pale flesh pink above, black beneath (in some cases piebald beneath).

“Claws, brown.”

In the majority of the chicks the down is uniformly dark and sooty, but here and there, in progeny of quite normal parents, one may find nestlings of so pale a grey as to be almost silvery white, with blackish heads, possibly a reversion to an earlier type, and, at any rate, suggestive of the young of the Emperor penguin, which perhaps represents the oldest stock of all. According to Dr. Bowdler Sharp, the colour of the head is in all cases blacker in the earlier stages than the rest of the body.(8)

As the chick ages the colour of its down changes, and all of it takes on a dull rusty brown colour. As it moults the abdomen and thighs change first, and white feathers appear in place of the down. Then come changes on the head, round the bill, and at the tail; the upper breast, neck, and back being the last parts to moult.

The feet, which in the young nestling have been almost black, change in colour to a brick-red that shows up very markedly against the rusty browndown, looking as if the legs were raw and inflamed. Later the permanent flesh colour is acquired, with black plantar surfaces. The nails are black at first, and later change to brown.

When the nestling down is shed, the resulting plumage is that of the adult, except that the throat is white instead of black. The upper part of the head and neck are bluish black, the throat, fore-neck, breast, and abdomen being a pure dazzling metallic white, a sharp line separating the white from the black areas. The flippers are the same bluish “tar” black on the back and white beneath.

In addition to the distinctive pure white plumage of the throat, the immature bird differs from the adult in one very marked particular, which is that the eyelids are black, as in the chick, and do not acquire the staring whiteness which is so distinctive of the adult Adélie penguin, increasing, as it does, the white area of the sclerotic so that the bird has the appearance of being perpetually surprised or very angry.

The iris is a rich reddish brown in the adults, but variable in the young.

At Cape Adare the light grey “silvery” coloured chicks mentioned by Dr. Wilson were by no means uncommon; in fact, quite a large proportion ofthe chicks had very light-coloured down. This is shown in some of the specimens I brought back to the British Museum.

Variations occasionally are met with in the plumage and soft parts of Adélies. The least rare of these consist of tufts of white feathers amongst the black plumage of the head. Several specimens so marked were seen at Cape Adare during the summer of 1911–12.

When these white tufts were present the feathers comprising them were usually longer than the black feathers among which they appeared, so that they stuck out in an untidy manner, and were very conspicuous.

In marked distinction to the slight variations above described were the three “Isabelline” varieties that I preserved, and are now to be seen in the British Museum collection. As these variations are very startling, and of the greatest interest, I give below a full description of their plumage and soft parts.

First specimencaptured on the Cape Adare rookery on November 4, 1911.

Iris, light brown.Eyelids, white.Bill, light brown.Feet, white.Claws, light brown.

The whole of the area covered by black feathers in the normal bird was covered by those of a very light fawn, somewhat darker on the neck and shoulders than elsewhere.Sex, male.

Second specimencaptured on November 14, 1911.

Iris, light brown.Eyelids, white.Bill, light brown; mandible, blackish on dorsum;maxilla,blackish on cutting edges.Feet, white on both surfaces.Claws, light brown.

In place of the black feathers of the normal bird, there was a fawn-coloured plumage, darkest on head and neck; lightest at bottom of back, back of flippers, and on shoulders.

Sex, female.

Third specimencaptured on December 23, 1911.

Iris, light brown.Feet, browny white.Claws, brown.Bill, brown; very dark on dorsum of mandible.Eyelids, white with a pink tinge.

In place of the black feathers of the normal bird, this specimen had those of a very light cream colour: in fact very slightly darker than the white area but deepening in shade to light fawn on the head, neck, and shoulders.

Sex, male.

The second specimen had mated with a normal cock. In each case the Isabelline birds were very much more docile than the normal forms. For instance, they did not struggle when picked up, as the others would have done, and the third specimen, when brought into our hut, gazed around with curiosity and apparent contentment, and showed not the least resentment at its captivity. A normal bird would have struggled and fought to the last extremity. Each bird was killed with chloroform.

So carefully did we keep the entire rookery under observation that I do not think it likely there were any more Isabelline forms. Thus we can conclude 3/750000 roughly represents the proportion of Isabelline forms among the species.

A bookwhich treats of Adélie penguins scarcely can be complete without reference to the beautiful McCormick's skua gull (Megalestris maccormicki), as probably no Adélie rookery exists without its attendant band of skuas, who build their own nests very close to and occasionally among those of the penguins on whom they prey, almost entirely supporting themselves and their young upon the eggs and young offspring of their hosts.

Mention has been made of these birds from time to time through the previous pages, and some idea of their habits already will have been formed. In point of fearlessness they fall somewhat short of the Adélie, but exhibit, perhaps, rather more caution in their dealings with man than the gulls who visit St. James's Park in London and are fed by the children there, frequently from the hand, though probably in a very few days they might become extremely tame were their short experience of mankind made less bitter. The majority ofexplorers, like most men, though kindly by nature, are entirely thoughtless in their dealings with wild animals, and the skuas approach them only to be killed or severely injured by the ice-axes or rocks that are thrown at them in wanton sport as they light on the ground or hover near the visitors, whom they quickly discover to be their bitter and relentless foes.

Arriving at the rookeries somewhat later than the Adélies, they do not lay their eggs until the beginning of December. Practically no nest is made, a mere hollow being worked in the ground, in which the bird sits. Frequently several hollows are made before the hen finally settles where she will lay. The two eggs, which are brownish olive thickly and darkly mottled with brown, are incubated for four weeks, after which the chicks are hatched.

From the moment of their first appearance from the egg these chicks exhibit the most extraordinary precocity. Covered with pale slaty-grey down, they look anything but the pugnacious little animals they turn out to be. Their one idea, besides feeding, seems to be to fight one another, and they may be seen to roll about the nest, locked together, fighting with beak and claw. They are fed fromthe ground, and may be seen picking about among the stones like the little domestic chickens, which they very much resemble. After a time invariably one of the chicks disappears, and as dead youngsters are not to be found, they are probably eaten by neighbours who have caught them wandering; in fact, Mr. Ferrar, of Captain Scott's first expedition, actually saw a Skua pick up a wandering chick of its own species and fly off with it, followed by a screaming flock of its neighbours, who sought to rob it of its prey.

In order to find out how many eggs a Skua would lay, I marked some nests, and took the eggs as they were laid. In each case a second egg was laid, but when this was taken no more appeared. In two nests I removed the first egg as soon as it was laid, but left the second, which was then sat upon by the parent, who was content with it, or unable to lay a third.

When any of us approached their nests the old birds would fly round in wide circles, making wild “stoops” at our heads each time they passed over us, in the evident attempt to frighten us away. Occasionally they would actually knock our heads with a wing, and nothing seeming to scare them off, they would swoop past us time after time in a mostdisconcerting manner. In order to keep them at a distance without having to keep a constant look-out, when I was in the neighbourhood of their nest, I used to walk about holding a ski-stick or the handle of my ice-axe straight above me, and they would swoop at the top of this instead of my head, which was infinitely preferable. One day when a high wind was blowing on top of Cape Adare, I had my ice-axe knocked clean out of my hand by one of the Skuas flying straight into the handle, the heavy blow seeming to affect the bird but slightly.

There was a “skuary” on the screes, close to a thickly populated part of the rookery, but the majority of these birds made their nests right at the top of Cape Adare, from which point of vantage they surveyed the entire rookery, and a very sharp look-out they kept too, for no sooner did we start to flense a seal than a flock of them descended to gobble at the lumps of blubber as we threw them on the ground. In this occupation they exhibited the greatest jealousy, and when there was a hundred times as much blubber on the ground as all the skuas possibly could have eaten, they continually tried to drive each other away. When fighting they rarely stayed on the ground,but leapt at one another into the air, and one of the illustrations shows two Skuas in the act of doing this. Their great spread of wing is well shown in this photograph. (Fig. 71.)

When penguins' eggs were plentiful in the rookery the Skuas flew very low over the ground, and as they passed over each colony of nests the sitting birds would crouch low upon them, a very necessary precaution, as I have described already in these pages the unerring way in which the Skuas picked up the penguins' eggs when they were left uncovered. Broken and empty shells strewed the ground in the vicinity of the Skuas' nests, and it is probable that in a large rookery, such as that at Cape Adare, thousands of eggs are destroyed by them annually.

The instinct of the thief is most strongly marked in the Skua tribe, and I am afraid that the mere love of thieving alone actuates them on many occasions. For instance, when I was skinning a seal one day near Cape Evans I left a pair of field-glasses lying on a coat close by, and on looking round saw a Skua in the act of making off with them, holding them by the strap in his beak. A sudden yell caused the offender to drop the glasses, fortunately when they were but a yard from theground. Again, when the crew of an Antarctic ship were engaged in blasting the sea-ice which imprisoned it, a Skua flew off with one of the detonators which had been left on the ice. I think the detonator contained dynamite, but at any rate I am told that there was a stampede on the part of the men to get away from under the bird as it flew overhead!

When, with two companions, I visited a skuary at the back of the penguin rookery at Cape Royds, the Skuas circled over us in a way I have described above, but instead of swooping at our heads, some of them repeatedly dropped their guano on to us as they passed over, timing the process with such surprising accuracy that I was hit once, and Commander Campbell no less than three times. The following year when at Cape Adare, I expected the same treatment from the Skuas there, but curiously enough, these never did it. That one skuary should have adopted such tactics and another not, is a very curious thing, but it may possibly be that the Cape Royds Skuas discovered the trick during the stay of Sir Ernest Shackleton's expedition, who had spent a year there quite recently, and of theDiscoveryexpedition which spent two years at Hut Point, but a fewmiles distant, whereas the only men who ever inhabited Cape Adare wintered there some fifteen years before. But this is mere speculation.

Fig. 71. “Leapt at one another into the Air”(Page 129)

Fig. 71. “Leapt at one another into the Air”

(Page 129)

Fig. 72. A Skua by its Chick(Page 131)

Fig. 72. A Skua by its Chick

(Page 131)

When one of the parent Skuas is on the ground near its nest, on the approach of anyone it throws its head back, opens its wings, and loudly proclaims its whereabouts with its raucous cawing notes. When hovering over food, and at other times when not alarmed or angry, the sounds made by a Skua are very like those of the common Herring Gull, and not altogether unmusical at times, especially when making the little shrill piping note, by which I have often thought that gulls so nearly imitate the squeaking of a block in its sheaf.

When the penguin chicks are hatched, the Skuas prey upon these in a most cruel manner, and should a chick wander away from the protecting old birds, a Skua is almost certain to pounce upon and kill it. This it does by pecking its eyes out, after which, with powerful strokes of its beak, it gets to work on its back and quickly devours the kidneys.

The dead bodies of hundreds of chicks are seen strewn about the rookery, and especially in the neighbourhood of the Skuas' nests, as very often they carry them there. All these dead chicks areseen to have two holes picked through their backs, one on each side, corresponding to the position of each kidney.

Besides the penguins' eggs and young, there is another fruitful source of food for the Skuas to be found along the Antarctic coasts at the early part of the year, and that is during the time when the seals are bringing forth their young upon the sea-ice. The Skuas attend upon them then, and devour the after-births. In the second volume of theDiscoveryreports Dr. Wilson mentions that large numbers of Skuas were noticed at Granite Harbour, and I have no doubt that they had congregated there for this purpose, as when passing the spot on a spring journey along the sea-ice in 1912, we saw many hundreds of Weddell seals with their young. So many were there, that as we lay in our sleeping-bags during the night, the bleating of the little calves near our tents conveyed to our half-awakened senses the impression that we were in the midst of lambing fields at home!

The soft parts are coloured as follows:

Bill, black.

Iris, dark brown.

Legs,toes, andwebbs, black, excepting a patch ofbright blue just above the tibio-metatarsal joint, in young fledglings. Wholly black afterwards. (They have a very fine spread of webb.)

Claws, black.

The feathers of the head, neck, and breast vary from very light buff, or almost white, to rich dark brown.

TheEmperor is by far the largest of all penguins, weighing between 80 and 90 lbs. It is also a particularly handsome and graceful bird. By nature it seems much like the Adélie, except that its general demeanour is extremely dignified, and its gait, as it approaches you over the snow, slow and deliberate.

The most marked difference in the habits of the Adélie and the Emperor lies in the respective seasons at which each lays and incubates its eggs. Unlike the Adélie, which, as we have seen,choosesthe warmest and lightest months of the year for the rearing of its young, the Emperor performs this duty in the darkest, coldest, and most tempestuous time. The only reason that has been suggested for this custom is that many months must pass before the chicks are fully fledged. Were they hatched in December (midsummer) as are Adélies, autumn would findthem still unfledged, and probably they would perish in consequence, whereas, being hatched in the early spring, they are fostered by their parents until the warmer weather begins, and then have the entire summer in which to accomplish their change of plumage.

Fig. 73. AN EMPEROR PENGUIN(Page 134)

Fig. 73. AN EMPEROR PENGUIN

(Page 134)

The only Emperor rookery known to man at the present day was discovered by Lieuts. Royds and Skelton, of Captain Scott's first Antarctic expedition, on the sea-ice beneath Cape Crozier. Here in the dark days of July this extraordinary bird lays its one egg upon the ice.

In the winter of 1911 a very brave journey was made to this spot by a party of Captain Scott's officers, consisting of Dr. Wilson, Lieut. Bowers and Mr. Cherry-Garrard. The experiences of this little band were so terrible that it is remarkable they ever returned to tell of them. Temperatures of −78° F. were encountered, and the most severe blizzards at lower temperatures than any sledging-party had yet endured. Under these truly terrible conditions the Emperors lay their eggs and hatch their young.

The mortality under such circumstances is very high, as one would expect. Avalanches of ice fall from the cliffs above, crushing many of the parentbirds, and causing hundreds of eggs to be deserted. As Dr. Wilson stated, the ice cliffs beneath which these remarkable animals sat were so unstable that no man in his senses would camp for a single night beneath them. In spite of this, evidence showed that after an avalanche of ice blocks from above, which had caused some of the Emperors to leave their eggs on the ice and bolt in terror, many of them had returned and continued to sit on the eggs which had been frozen and killed by the frost in their absence, continuing to do so long after they were completely rotten. Indeed, in their desire for something to hatch, some who had been deprived of their eggs, were seen to be attempting to incubate pieces of ice in their place, and, unlike Adélies, they seem ever ready to snatch and foster the young of their neighbours.

The first time the rookery at Cape Crozier was visited, not above one thousand birds occupied it. On the second occasion their numbers were far short of this. By the springtime only one out of ten or twelve birds are seen to be rearing young, so it is obvious other rookeries await discovery in other parts, as there are a large number of Emperors to be seen along the Antarctic coasts.

Fig. 74. PROFILE OF AN EMPEROR(Page 134)

Fig. 74. PROFILE OF AN EMPEROR

(Page 134)

When in theTerra Novawe made our wayalong the face of the great Barrier to the eastward, we saw large numbers of Emperors, especially to the extreme eastward where a heavy hang of pack-ice blocked our further passage, and I have little doubt that future exploration will disclose a rookery or rookeries in this direction.

Again, in the spring of 1912, when nearing the end of a sledge journey from the northward to Cape Evans we passed large gatherings of Emperor penguins on some very old sea-ice under the Barrier's edge, along the southern end of McMurdo Sound, and it seems not at all unlikely that they may breed here too. Unfortunately we were unable at that time to make detours, so had to leave the question unsettled, but if they do breed here, they must have far to go to get food during those winters when the sea-ice does not break out of the Sound.

The growth of the Emperor chick is slow, when compared with the mushroom-like rate at which the Adélie youngster increases its substance.

Approximately the egg is laid at the beginning of July and hatched out some seven or eight weeks later. During the period of incubation, which duty is shared by all, male and female alike, the egg is held in a loose fold of skin at the lower part of theabdomen, the skin of the adults being worn bare of feathers in this region.

When hatched out, the chick is coveted by every unoccupied adult, and so desperate at times are the struggles for its possession that very frequently it gets injured or killed by its would-be foster parents. Dr. Wilson has estimated the mortality among the chicks before they shed their down at 77 per cent. and thinks that half this number are killed by kindness. Very often, in fact, they will crawl under projecting ledges of ice, or anywhere to escape the attentions of half a dozen or so of adults, all bearing down upon them together, only to meet and struggle for their possession, during which process the innocent cause may get trampled and clawed to death. So strong is the maternal instinct of the Emperor, that frozen and lifeless chicks are carried about and nursed until their down is worn away. In fact, the scientists who visited the rookery were unable to get good specimens of dead chicks, as all of these had been treated in this way.

Fortunately the Emperor chick escapes the depredation of the Skua gull, which plays such havoc in the Adélie rookeries, because the Skua does not come south until the summer, by which time the Emperor chicks are well grown. As in the case ofthe Adélies, the black throat is not acquired until the second moult. When this has taken place, the bird looks remarkably handsome. The bill, which is curved and tapering, is bluish black, but the posterior half of the mandible is coloured a beautiful lilac. The head and throat are black, whilst on each side of the neck is a patch of vivid orange feathers. The rest of the body is marked in the same way as the Adélie.

The mortality among the chicks being so very high, the probability is that the life of the adult is long, as otherwise the species could hardly survive. Dr. Herbert Klugh has calculated that the Emperor penguin lives for thirty-five years.

Evidence goes to show that the young birds spend their immaturity on the pack-ice, as all those sighted and collected on the pack at any distance to the northward have been immature, and no immature birds have been seen along the coasts at any time during the summer.

The food of the Emperor mainly consists of fish and crustaceans. There are invariably many small pebbles in the stomach. Like Adélies they must of course have open water within reach in order to get food, and in the neighbourhood of Cape Crozier this is always to be found, as the rapid tide therekeeps the sea from freezing in over a considerable area, so that probably they never have to walk more than a mile or two to get food.

The cry of the Emperor is very loud and travels far across the ice. When sledging over the sea-ice in the spring, in the neighbourhood of Cape Adare, a curious sound was heard at times, reminding one strongly of the “overtone” notes of a ship's steam horn. The sounds puzzled us at the time, but I think now that most probably they were made by Emperor penguins.

The egg of the Emperor is white, pyriform in shape, and weighs just under 1 lb.

My own experience of these birds being limited I do not intend to enter deeply into the subject. The only surviving member of the band who visited Cape Crozier during the winter is Mr. Cherry-Garrard, and it is much to be hoped that some day he will write us an account of what he saw there. In the meantime for further details of the habits and morphology of the species, the reader is referred to Dr. Wilson's work, published in the second volume of the British Museum Reports, on the National Antarctic Expedition 1901–1904.

PRINTED ATTHE BALLANTYNE PRESSLONDON

(1)Pygoscelis adeliæ.(2)Sea-Leopard =Stenorhinchus leptonyx.(3)Fig. 12.(4)Fig. 37.(5)This “watch-bill” was kindly kept for me by Mr. Priestly on his meteorological rounds, the nests being near the thermometer screen.(6)Fig. 62.(7)Fig. 70.(8)This was invariable at Cape Adare.(9)Aptenodytes forsteri.

(1)Pygoscelis adeliæ.

(2)Sea-Leopard =Stenorhinchus leptonyx.

(3)Fig. 12.

(4)Fig. 37.

(5)This “watch-bill” was kindly kept for me by Mr. Priestly on his meteorological rounds, the nests being near the thermometer screen.

(6)Fig. 62.

(7)Fig. 70.

(8)This was invariable at Cape Adare.

(9)Aptenodytes forsteri.

Transcriber's Note:The following is a list of corrections made to the original. The first passage is the original passage, the second the corrected one.Figure 15:SOME ARE WALKING AND SOME “TOBOGANNING”SOME ARE WALKING AND SOME “TOBOGGANING”Figure 51:Fig. 51.SEA LEOPARDS“LURK BENEATH THE OVERHANGING LEDGESFig. 51.SEA-LEOPARDS“LURK BENEATH THE OVERHANGING LEDGESPage 88:‘porpoise” madly away for a few hundred yards,“porpoise” madly away for a few hundred yards,Page 123:brown; mandible, blackish on dorsum;maxillabrown; mandible, blackish on dorsum;maxilla,Page 134:Unlike the Adélie, which, as we have seen,chosesUnlike the Adélie, which, as we have seen,chooses

Transcriber's Note:

The following is a list of corrections made to the original. The first passage is the original passage, the second the corrected one.

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