MACQUARIE ISLAND

Southland Times, Issue 17659, 17 February 1916, Page 6

MACQUARIE ISLAND

P LECTURE AT FIELD NATURALISTS’ CLUB. On Thursday evening a most instructive address was given before the A\ ellington Field Naturalists’ Club on Macquarie Island by Air H. Hamilton, of the Dominion Museum, and late b:ologist to tlie Alawson expedition. The lecturer dealt with -Macquarie Island in general, touching upon its history, climate, physiology, zoology, geology, and botany. AlacQuarie Island, he said, was discovered in 1810 by a sealer. Captain Hasselpourgh, of the ship Perseverance. From that time onwards the island had been the centre of quite a large oil industry, the oil being extracted from seals and penguins. The first scientists to visit the island were two Russians, who set foot on the island in IS2O and collected botanical and other specimens. About 1532. however, was the earliest date on which botanical and other specimens from the island were recorded. These were sent to Kew, England, by Air C. Fraser, superintendent of the Sydney Botanical Gardens, who probably had received them from a sealing trader. Scientific investigations of a later date were carried on by Professor J. H. Scott, of Otago University, and by Air A. Hamilton, late director of the dominion Museum, Wellington, whose works Dotn were published in the Transactions of the Now Zealand Institute. These visits were made respectively/in 1880 and 1894. Apart from the botany, however, very little was known about the biology of the island, and in order that tlie biology should bo thoroughly studied the lecturer was appointed as biologist to the Alawson expedition. One of the most noteworthy features of the island was -its climate, the winter and the summer being practically the same in varying degrees of wind, rain and sleet. The lowest temperature experienced was 19 degrees, and the highest 57 degrees. The climate of a place, he said, was a most important factor, as by it was regulated the flora and fauna. Alacquarie Island biologically was of remarkable interest, inasmuch as it provided a link in the chain of small islands dotted throughout the / Southern Hemisphere, and whose flora and fauna resembled one another so closely. The lectorer after defining the climate and its effects gave some idea of what the animal life on the island was like. The most remarkable denizens were the seals and the penguins. The dealt fairly with the mode of life of both seals and penguins. There were several varieties of seals, but by far the largest was the "sea elephant.” This seal when full grown measured in length over 20 feet and in girth over 15 feet. The weight of a seal thus size was calculated by the lecturer to be between five and six tons. A newly-born pup weighed 1151b and sft 2:n in length. The nomenclature, he said, of the seal was very peculiar—the male being called a bull, the female a cow and the young a pup—not a calf. Next In interest to the seals came the penguins. Of these there are four different kinds, the king penguin, the royal penguin, the Victoria penguin, and the rockhopper. By far the most important is the royal. It is from this species that oil is extracted. Concerning the habits of life, the lecturer dealt very fully with both the seals and the penguins, dealing with their coming and going, their mode of life in general when on the. island. The botany of the island the lecturer also touched upon. The island. he said, was extremely bleak, and no trees whatever were growing on it. The main vegetation was tussock (poa foliosa) on the damp lowlands, stilbocarna polaris and tussock on the hillsides, stilbocarpa and pleurophyllum hookeri in the gullies, and on the windswept top a remarkable cushion-like plant, azorella selago. The address throughout was largely illustrated by many excellent photographs illustrative of plant and animal life.