Thanks are specially due to Mr. John Quiller Rowett, LL.D., without whose generous support the expedition would have been impossible.
APPENDIX II
NATURAL HISTORY
Soon after leaving England numbers of landbirds were seen about the ship. In position lat. 43° 52´ S. and 11° 51´ W. long, we saw a heron passing overhead, steering in a S.S.E. direction towards the northern coast of Africa. After leaving Lisbon on the way to Madeira, numbers of robins, wrens, doves, larks and sparrows flew aboard in an exhausted condition. They were captured, measured and their colourings noted, afterwards given food and water, and allowed to go free. One dove that came near the ship was so exhausted that it fell several times into the sea, which was very choppy. We expected it to drown, but on each occasion it rose from the break of the wave and finally settled on the topsail yard, where it rested and dried itself, and finally set off with renewed vigour in the direction of land. Mother Carey’s Chickens joined us soon after our start, and we were rarely without them throughout the voyage.
At St. Vincent we collected specimens of vultures, mostly black or dark brown, but some were white with black markings. A few crows, larks and other small birds were seen. A white owl was presented to the naturalist by one of the residents. The species is not common to the island, but is reported to have been seen after high winds blowing from the mainland.
In latitude 60° 26´ N. we were surrounded by a particularly large school of porpoises, and secured one by harpooning it from the bowsprit. It was a male, 7 feet 7 inches in length, and the stomach contained the remains of 5 squids and 114 octopus beaks.
We visited St. Paul’s Rocks on November 8th, when two species of birds were found to be nesting: the Noddy Tern and the Booby. The Noddy Tern (Anous stolidus) is shy, and few except those with young remained on the island. We collected some of their eggs, many of them addled. The young were almost fully fledged, but each was attended by the parent bird, which stayed to defend it. These birds varied largely in colourings, chiefly in the degrees of white and lavender grey of the forehead and back of the neck, the lighter phase being the more common. Nests were built roughly to a height of from 12 to 15 cm., and composed largely of seaweed and guano. Built-up nests predominated, but several eggs and young were found in depressions in the broken rocks. The Brown Gannet, or Booby (Sula leucogastra), is so called from its stupid expression. The nests consisted of rocks, a few feathers and guano, or merely depressions in the rock. We collected some eggs and several young ones in all stages, from one which was newly hatched, without down or feathers and eyes closed, to those which were almost fully fledged. The nests are so set in the irregular and sloping surfaces that the birds continually foul each other, the young especially becoming very filthy in this way. They live largely, if not entirely, on flying fish, and gorge themselves so heavily with them that when taking flight on our going amongst them each bird disgorged one, two or three fish in different stages of digestion.
Crabs abound on the rocks. They are very active and nimble, and at the approach of man scramble into crevices. They are able to jump, and on several occasions were seen to gather their legs under them and leap squarely forward a distance of two or three feet. Some grow to large size and develop powerful claws, but apparently they make no attempt to seize the birds, the chicks or the eggs. When the adult bird disgorged on rising, the crabs hastened to seize the flying fish, and, tearing them to pieces, crammed them voraciously into their jaws. There is a lagoon in the middle of the rocks, the floor of which is covered with marine plants of many varieties, whilst fish swim to and fro in great numbers. Sharks, varying in length from four to eight feet, swarmed in it, and we harpooned several. The stomachs of most of them were empty, and the others contained only a few squids. A full description of the fish of St. Paul’s Rocks will be found elsewhere. Numerous specimens of all species were taken from the rocks and preserved for sending to the museums.
We left Rio de Janeiro on January 18th for South Georgia. During this part of the journey we were followed by stormy petrels, Wilson petrels, wandering albatross, mollymauks, Cape pigeons, Cape hens, sooty albatross, and saw several terns. As we neared the island we observed penguins, skua gulls and giant petrels, and, as we passed along the coast, prions, diving petrels and dominican gulls.
The whaling stations of South Georgia are visited by many varieties of seabirds, which congregate there in hundreds of thousands for the offal which finds its way into the sea. By acting as scavengers they serve a very useful purpose. Cape pigeons thickly cover the water for hundreds of square yards and present a really extraordinary sight. They chatter and squabble incessantly. Terns flit gracefully about, never settling on the water, but making occasional short dives for morsels. Wilson petrels flit like fairies over the surface, their feet touching, but their bodies never entering the sea. Dominican gulls, skua gulls, mollymauks and giant petrels also come about in hundreds, for there is food in abundance in the harbours.
There are about twenty-four species of birds in South Georgia, including a wagtail (Anthus antarcticus), which is found on the lower slopes of the island about the beaches. The Wandering Albatross (Diomedea exulans) is the most stately and graceful of all flying birds, yet when seen ashore or at close range has a curiously foolish expression. It nests on the grassy promontories of the main island and on some of the smaller outlying islets. The nests are pyramidal mounds composed of tussock grass, mud and a few feathers. The hen lays one egg, which the parent birds take turns in incubating. The chicks are pretty white fluffy things, which later take on a brown adult plumage. As the bird increases in size so the brown colouring gives way to a white phase, the very old ones being almost entirely white. The nesting season commences about the middle of January. Wilkins observed that inter-mating took place between birds of neighbouring nests, a male bird wandering off to visit an already mated female. This usually took place when the husband bird was out at sea in search of food, but occasionally it was observed that the apparently true mate would appear on the scene, and, discovering the intruder, would show fight, and a battle would ensue. This, however, was never a serious matter, and was mainly an exhibition of side-stepping, feints and vicious snaps of the beaks, but the combatants rarely came to real pecking or blows. The female looked on and kept up a chattering noise with the bill whilst the fight lasted. Only once was a female seen to leave nest and egg unprotected. In a moment a skua had swept down and thrust his beak into the egg. The albatross does not nest on the north-east coast of South Georgia farther south than Possession Bay.