Wild Life in the Sub-Antarctic

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 371, 2 August 1946, Page 8

Wild Life in the Sub-Antarctic

had eight flower-spikes in full bloom and another developing. Each spike had from 25 to 30 aster-like flowers coloured from mauve to lilac. Through this almost tropical verdure huge sea-lions staggered drunkenly along, disturbing dozens of brilliant green parrakeets and dainty little Auckland Island snipe. The air was shrill with the calls of sea-birds, the soft calls of burrowing petrels protested from beneath the ground one walked over, a colony of giant petrels on a clear headland fluttered awkwardly, and at higher altitudes the hillsides were starred with hundreds of sitting albatrosses. Across the harbour on the steep western cliffs could be seen thousands of mollyhawks, generally confined now to almost inaccessible faces because of the ravages of wild pigs. The "heavy rata forest with which the lower slopes of the Auckland Islands are

clad also provides a memorable sight when the great splashes of scarlet brighten the sombre upland tussock country. The name "Fairchild’s Garden" is a fitting tribute to a gallant captain of one of the earlier Government vessels which periodically visited the lonely Sub-ant-arctic Islands South to the Campbells Campbell Island lies farther south and does not possess any forest at all. Only stands of the endemic shrub Dracophyllum scoparium darken the lower country: all else seems to be tussock. But here, too, the beautiful plants seen on the Aucklands aré growing, and would provide as fair a sight were it not for the browsing of the wild sheep, descendants of those left when the island was deserted in 1927.

But if Campbell Island is to-day not so spectacular for its plant life, at least it has a unique animal and bird population. The huge and grotesque séa-ele-phants litter the shores of the. harbours, sea lions abound on the sandy beaches and tussock slopes, and wary fur-seals are moderately ~plentiful on the exposed rocky coasts») Rockhopper penguins nest in millions, grey-headed and blackbrowed moilyhawks star their colonies in tens of thousands and the island is the stronghold of thousands of the wellnamed royal albatross. The colony of tockhopper penguins below Mt. Paris has been estimated to contain not less than 212 million birds, surely one of the largest colonies of this quaint little bird in the world. I had, therefore, ample onateites to study during my years in the sub-ant-arctic, and will try in succeeding articles to give Listener readers detailed accounts of the plants and animals that I saw every day. (To be continued)