. Scottish geographical magazine. December 2, and until two or three THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. 35 days before this the birds had disappeared from the islands altogetherfor about ten days. The young were not hatched until January 13,giving an incubation period of six weeks. On this date the first Wilson petrel eggs were got, and they hadnot hatched any young when we left the Orkneys on February birds seem habitually to lay too late; for, in the crevices, alongwith the single fresh egg, two or even three unhatched eggs of previousseasons and occasional dead nestlings w
. Scottish geographical magazine. December 2, and until two or three THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. 35 days before this the birds had disappeared from the islands altogetherfor about ten days. The young were not hatched until January 13,giving an incubation period of six weeks. On this date the first Wilson petrel eggs were got, and they hadnot hatched any young when we left the Orkneys on February birds seem habitually to lay too late; for, in the crevices, alongwith the single fresh egg, two or even three unhatched eggs of previousseasons and occasional dead nestlings were almost always to be more feasible explanation would be that there had been a successionof cold summers, which certainly was the case in 1902-3, whatever itmay have been previous to that. Weddell seals were very numerous :over a hundred could often be counted lying on the small raised beachon the west side of Scotia Bay. Sea leopards came ashore fairly often, but very few Lobodons andonly a single Ross seal were Fig. 10.—Weddell Seal. The general weather of December, as will be seen from Mr. Mossmansappended meteorological abstract, was not of the character one usuallyassociates with midsummer. The amount of cloud, for example, 93, was greater than in anymonth except March, while the number of hours of snowfall (212) wasin excess of every month except August with 218. As regards sunshine,the total for the month, viz. 73 hours, was actually less than thatrecorded during September. There was also much drift, and even aslate as the 21st the appearance was about as wintry as during any ofthe six months preceding. In January the weather showed a considerable improvement on thatof December, although there was more cloud and less sunshine. Driftwas almost wholly absent, and light winds prevailed. Kite flights forthe purpose of investigating the meteorology of higher strata of theatmosphere were tried on four different days during the summer, butunsuccessfully. The
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectgeography, bookyear18
