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 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 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 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 of the 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 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.