ANTARCTIC FAUNA

Otago Witness, Issue 3443, 9 March 1920, Page 42

ANTARCTIC FAUNA

"BOILINGS AND BEASTLINESSES." THE PENGUINS' THANKS. (From Oub Own Correspondent.) LONDON, January 8. Referring to the absolute protection of seals for three years in the area, of the Antarctic- under New Zealand control, and to the decision of Tasmania not to renew the lease of Macquarie Island to the company which has been .reckless in its destruction of bird life, The Times congratulate a the authorities concerned, and the many pensons who have directed attention to the havoc being wrought. "The birds and beasts of the Antarctic zone, and in particular the species of penguins, and the seals, sea-lions, and sea-elephants, are unique and interesting legacies from the past which it is the duty of the present generation to preserve. Nature has provided them with a rich coat of blubber to serve as a protection against Polar cold, and the greed of man has been exploiting them at a rate that pointed to their early extinction. We venture to hope that a further step will now be taken, and that means will be found to make Macquarie Island an inviolable sanctuary for Antarctic life." To The Times Mr A. Cherry-Garrard had written: —" Shall the penguins call us Huns? was the question several months ago, when The Times gave publicity to atrocities which would have 'made most Huns weep. Penguins were being shelled in the sacred cause of commerce with as littlethought as we shell peas. The answer is 'No l* There are some Huns among them, the penguins say, but the nice people, like The Times and Mr Wells, and others not so well known (but just as nice), have been too much for them. For the glad news has come home that these boilings and beastlinesses are to stop. When the frost is in the trees and the snow is on the ground you will hear them say ' Thank you.' "

FEELINGS OF AFFECTION. Dr H. C Ponting wrote that he and Captain F. Hurley, had obtained the only complete kinematograph records of the birds and beasts of the Antarctic. "It was Captain Hurley's fine work amongst the animal life of Macquarie Island and Adelie Land, when with the Mawson Expedition, which gave -visual proof to those at Home of the numbers and the unique nature of the fauna of these regions. My own activities lay a thousand miles farther south. As illustrator of the zoology of Ross Island for Scott's last expedition, I lived for months amongst the creatures that exist nearest to the Polo, recording every possible phase of the life of the whales, seals, gulls, and pen-

guins. I can therefore feel that the hope SSir Douglas Mawson on many occasions expressed to me is at last to be realised — that the creatures which every Antarctic explorer regards with such affection might have an inviolable sanctuary."