THE PROBLEM OF ARCTIC LIFE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIE,—As you and your readers seem to take great interest in natural history, I venture to attract your attention to the subject of life in the Antarctic Seas. In an article on "The Problem of Arctic Life," which appeared in the Spectator of September 21st, 1895, the following passages occur Granting that highly organised creatures can exist there, it is passing strange that they should consent to do so, or make a voluntary habitation in that hell of cold and darkness which Norse fancy imagined as a place of torment more appalling than. the lake of liquid fire. One would have thought Arctic life must cease, because, even if possible, it was not worth living; that there would be a voluntary exodus of beasts, as of birds, before the winter setting of the sun ; and the slower moving mammals would go, to return no more."
As a curious puzzle, exactly reversing the idea in the fore- going sentence, allow me to give the following information.
Between the Antarctic Circle and New Zealand lie several' small groups of islands,—the Snares, the Traps, Antipodes, the Macquaries, the Aucklands, Campbell Island, Emerald Island, &c. Some of these are mere barren peaks of rock,. some are partly covered with low scrub and grass, but almost all of them are nurseries of the sea-birds, which may be- counted by thousands and tens of thousands on those lonely places. The penguins especially, in many species, and some of great size, use these islands as their breeding-places.. When, during the summer, the eggs have been hatched and the young ones attended to, the younger generation is left on the nurseries, and the adults set out for the lands around the South Pole. They leave in autumn, thin and attenuated with the cares of their families, they go off' for the winter to the clime of cold and ice, and they return six months afterwards, fat as butter, to their old haunts_ Theirsquadrons cover the sea for miles, swimming abreast in- long columns.
When one part of the bird-army strikes the first regular resting-place, it appears as if the word was passed along, and the proper inhabitants of the spot collect and take posses- sion ; the others wheeling their lines right and left round the obstruction and still pushing northward toward their usual summer homes. The adult birds mount the rocks,. push the youngsters of last year out into the sea, and drive them off the beaches. Then the regular breeding business- begins again. The curious part of the migration is that the birds go to what we suppose to be a place of solid ice and intense cold in which to winter ; but I cannot help surmising that behind the great fringe of ice-cliffs which gird the Ant- arctic continent, there must be many pleasant bays and fiords- wherein the penguins fish and fatten.
It may interest you to know that the great penguin of the Southern Circle, standing with its head as high as a man's waist, hatches its eggs in a peculiar manner. These are not laid upon the ground and brooded on after the manner of
most birds' eggs. The female lays two large eggs. The first she hands over to the male-bird, the other she keeps. The egg is held on the upper surface of the large flat feet, and is- pushed up under the waistcoat of thick feathers. It is there held close to the body, whose warmth gradually vitalises the
young bird. So tenacious are the parent-birds of this grip, that if you knock one of them over, it will fall over on its- back with its feet stuck stiffly out, still clutching the egg to its body.
Sir James Hector, F.R.S., has just returned from a trip among these islands. He will have many interesting things to tell scientific men concerning the geology of these little- known localities. Hoping that you will pardon my troubling you with a letter from such a place as the Antipodes, I am, Wellington, New Zealand, November 21st, 1895. •
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