ANTARCTIC LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 129, 3 June 1930, Page 5

ANTARCTIC LIFE.

ZOOLOGISTS LECTURE.

HABITS OF ALBATROSS

SOUTHERN" SEAS NOT "WASTES."

"To think that the southern seas are 'wastes' in the sense that we think of deserts is entirely wrong," said Mr. 11. A. Falla, M.A., in a lecture 011 Antarctic bird life in the St. Paul's Presbyterian Hall, Devonport, last evening. Mr. Falla was assistant zoologist, specialising in pelagic bird life, with the Mawson expedition to the Antarctic. .

"The southern seas teem with life in a complex, inter-relating scale," said Mr. Falla. "Almost to the same extent as in tropical seas, the surface waters are filled with microscopic organisms on which small fisli feed, they themselves being prey for larger fish. In this side of life the ocean birds have perfectec} for themselves a successful mode of living, which, depends 011 ability either to fly well or to swim well."

The petrel family, which ranged from a stormy petrel, weighing only an ounce, to the wandering albatross, with a wing spread of from 10 to 12 feet, had gained its name, Mr. Falla said, from a habit that a large proportion of the species had in taking off into the air. Although graceful and, effortless in their flight, they paddled in such a manner in leaving the water as .to give the appearance of walking along tlie surfafce. It was the Spaniards -who had first observed these birds, and they called them "p'etrello" or "Little Peter," from the story of Peter's attempts to walk 011 the water. Albatrosses, by reason- of the fact that , tliey could adjust their wings to suit air currents, were able to fly long distances at great speeds without beating the air at all. Thus they preferred a strong adverse wind to a calm. These birds had been known to fly 0000 miles. On one occasion French sailors, wrecked on an island off the trade routes, had captured an albatross and tied a message to its neck. Three months later the bird was picked up on the coast of Australia, 3000 miles away from the place it had been liberated. The message was 1 the first notification the world had of the wreck, and a relief ship. was sent out at once.

The reasons why albatrosses have the habit of following ships for long distances were enumerated by Mr. Falla. The first and most obvious was the picking up of scraps thrown overboard; the second was that the churning of the propellers killed or brought to the surface large quantities of , small marine organisms; and the third was that the passage of the ship created air currents which enabled the birds to fly without effort. ■ Mr. Falla said lie did not think that individual birds followed the one ship for the long periods commonly attributed to them. For nine months of the year, however, the albatrosses, were either in the air or sleeping on the surface of the water. For the. other three months, the breeding season, they chose a bare, desolate island or rock, where they reared their young.

Mr. Falla ;\vent on to describe the penguins which, he said, had perfected the art of swimming. They were quite definitely birds. There was no sugges-. tion of their, being "half fish, half bird." Although the covering of their flappers resembled scales, the composition was undoubtedly of feathers. Penguins had no fear of human beings.

Mr. . Falla's lecture was illustrated with lantern slides "of photographs taken by himself.