The instinct of the thief is most strongly marked in the Skua tribe, and I am afraid that the mere love of thieving alone actuates them on many occasions. For instance, when I was skinning a seal one day near Cape Evans I left a pair of field-glasses lying on a coat close by, and on looking round saw a Skua in the act of making off with them, holding them by the strap in his beak. A sudden yell caused the offender to drop the glasses, fortunately when they were but a yard from the ground. Again, when the crew of an Antarctic ship were engaged in blasting the sea-ice which imprisoned it, a Skua flew off with one of the detonators which had been left on the ice. I think the detonator contained dynamite, but at any rate I am told that there was a stampede on the part of the men to get away from under the bird as it flew overhead! When, with two companions, I visited a skuary at the back of the penguin rookery at Cape Royds, the Skuas circled over us in a way I have described above, but instead of swooping at our heads, some of them repeatedly dropped their guano on to us as they passed over, timing the process with such surprising accuracy that I was hit once, and Commander Campbell no less than three times. The following year when at Cape Adare, I expected the same treatment from the Skuas there, but curiously enough, these never did it. That one skuary should have adopted such tactics and another not, is a very curious thing, but it may possibly be that the Cape Royds Skuas discovered the trick during the stay of Sir Ernest Shackleton's expedition, who had spent a year there quite recently, and of the _Discovery_ expedition which spent two years at Hut Point, but a few miles distant, whereas the only men who ever inhabited Cape Adare wintered there some fifteen years before. But this is mere speculation. [Illustration: Fig. 71. "Leapt at one another into the Air" (Page 129)] [Illustration: Fig. 72. A Skua by its Chick (Page 131)] When one of the parent Skuas is on the ground near its nest, on the approach of anyone it throws its head back, opens its wings, and loudly proclaims its whereabouts with its raucous cawing notes. When hovering over food, and at other times when not alarmed or angry, the sounds made by a Skua are very like those of the common Herring Gull, and not altogether unmusical at times, especially when making the little shrill piping note, by which I have often thought that gulls so nearly imitate the squeaking of a block in its sheaf. When the penguin chicks are hatched, the Skuas prey upon these in a most cruel manner, and should a chick wander away from the protecting old birds, a Skua is almost certain to pounce upon and kill it. This it does by pecking its eyes out, after which, with powerful strokes of its beak, it gets to work on its back and quickly devours the kidneys.