Sometimes, digging at hazard in the drifted snow, I came on birds that had been deeply buried, and though they were held down and kept motionless by the weight of the snow covering them, most of them were alive, and I have no doubt many dozens died a lingering death in this way. Such as had merely suffered broken flippers or legs, I spared, and the next day nearly all of these seemed to be doing well. One bird I found sitting on two eggs which were in the middle of a rivulet of water, so I lifted them out and put them on dry ground close by, but the parent would have nothing to do with them after this. [Illustration: Fig. 64. ADÉLIES ON THE ICE-FOOT] A feature of the above scene, which one could not help noticing, was that however badly a penguin was injured it was never molested by the others, as is almost invariably the rule among other birds, including their near neighbours the skuas. I have seen a sick skua hunted continuously for over an hour by a mob of its own kind who would not allow it to settle on the ice for a moment's rest. Another item of my list requiring explanation is "snow-drifts." During both spring and summer there are occasional snowstorms, and during these the birds sit tight on their nests, sometimes being covered up by drift. As a rule the bird on the nest keeps a space open by poking its head upwards through the snow, but sometimes it becomes completely buried. Air diffuses so rapidly through snow that death does not take place by suffocation, and the bird can live for weeks beneath a drift, sitting on its nest in the little chamber which it has thawed out by its own warmth. Generally after a few hours the snow abates and settles down sufficiently to expose the nest once more, but sometimes a breeze springs up which is not strong enough to blow the snow away, but simply hardens the surface of the drift into a crust which lasts for several weeks, and the birds are imprisoned in consequence. Then little black dots are seen about the surface of the drift, which are the heads of penguins thrust through their breathing holes.