e yearly increase in numbers in the only
rookeries that are being worked is certainly greater than the decrease
due to the depredations of the sealers. Apart from this, there are acres
of rookeries on the island from which not a single bird is taken, and
they go on year after year adding thousands upon thousands to their
already vast numbers.

This species resembles the others in habits, and I shall not describe
them at any length. They are of the same colour as the Victoria
penguins, but have a more orderly crest. Their rookeries are always on
or very close to a running stream which forms the highway along
which they travel to and fro. There is no policeman on duty, but a
well-ordered procession is somehow arranged whereby those going up keep
to one side and those coming down keep to the other. Once they are in
the rookery, however, different conditions obtain. Here are fights,
squabbles and riots, arising from various causes, the chief of which
appears to be a disposition on the part of some birds to loiter about.
During the nesting time much disorder prevails, and fights, in which
beaks and flippers are energetically used, may be seen in progress
at various places throughout the rookery. The nests are made of small
stones, and occasionally, a bone or two from the skeleton of some
long-dead relative forms part of the bulwarks. The attempt on the part
of some birds to steal stones from surrounding nests is about the most
fruitful cause of a riot, and the thief generally gets soundly thrashed,
besides which all have a peck at him as he makes his way with as much
haste as possible from the danger-zone. As the season advances, these
rookeries become covered with filthy slush, but it seems to make no
difference to the eggs, as the chicks appear in due course. When the
moulting process is in full swing the rookeries are very crowded, and
feathers and slush then become mixed together, making the place anything
but fragrant.

A fifty-four mile gale from the west-north-west blew down on us on the
20th, but shortly after noon it weakened, and, towards evening, with the
shifting of the wind to southwest, came squalls of sleet and snow and a
drop in temperature. Hamilton returned from Lusitania Bay in the dinghy
on the 21st, but Blake stopped there as he had not yet finished his work
in that locality. The dinghy was well laden with specimens of various
kinds and, on the way up, some wood and pickets were left at Green
Valley fo