Antarctic Penguins Part 10

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 circ.u.mstances is very high, as one would expect. Avalanches of ice fall from the cliffs above, crushing many of the parent birds, 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 Adelies, they seem ever ready to s.n.a.t.c.h 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 74. PROFILE OF AN EMPEROR (Page 134)]

When in the _Terra Nova_ we made our way along 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 pa.s.sage, 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 pa.s.sed 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 Adelie 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 the abdomen, 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 Adelie rookeries, because the Skua does not come south until the summer, by which time the Emperor chicks are well grown. As in the case of the Adelies, 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 Adelie.

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 Adelies 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 there keeps 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.