+------------+--------------+---------------+-------------+ | | Date of | Date of | | | | appearance | appearance | Interval | | | of first egg | of second egg | | +------------+--------------+---------------+-------------+ | No. 1 nest | Nov. 14 | -- | Only 1 laid | | | | | | | No. 2 nest | Nov. 13 | Nov. 16 | 3 days | | | | | | | No. 3 nest | Nov. 14 | Nov. 17 | 3 days | | | | | | | No. 4 nest | | | | | | | | | | No. 5 nest | Nov. 12 | Nov. 16 | 4 days | | | | | | | No. 6 nest | Nov. 8 | Nov. 12 | 4 days | | | | | | | No. 7 nest | Nov. 24 | -- | Only 1 laid | +------------+--------------+---------------+-------------+ The only notes I have on the incubation period are that the first chick appeared in No. 5 nest on December 19 (incubation period thirty-seven days) and in No. 7 nest on December 28 (incubation period thirty-four days). The skuas had increased considerably in numbers by November 4, and frequently came to the scrap-heap outside our hut. Here were many frozen carcasses of penguins which we had thrown there after the breasts had been removed for food during the past winter. The skuas picked the bones quite clean of flesh, so that the skeletons lay white under the skins, and it was remarkable to what distances they sometimes carried the carcasses, which weighed considerably more than the skuas themselves. I found some of these bodies over five hundred yards away. A perpetual feud was carried on between the penguins and the skuas. The latter birds come to the south in the summer, and make their nests close to, and in some cases actually among, those of the penguins, and during the breeding time live almost entirely on the eggs, and later, on the chicks. They never attack the adult penguins, who run at them and drive them away when they light within reach, but as the skuas can take to the wing and the penguins cannot, no pursuit is possible. [Illustration: Fig. 34. Flooded] [Illustration: Fig. 35. A Nest with Stones of Mixed Sizes]