OUR STORY
National Heritage
Biology
1. Station Collections.
(a) At Macquarie Island, Hamilton worked for two years amongst a rich fauna and a scanty but interesting flora. Amongst other discoveries a finch indigenous to Macquarie Island was found.
(b) In Adelie Land, Hunter, assisted by Laseron, secured a large biological collection, notwithstanding the continuous bad weather. Dredgings from depths down to fifty fathoms were made during the winter. The eggs of practically all the flying birds known along Antarctic shores were obtained, including those of the silver-grey petrel and the Antarctic petrel, which were not previously known; also a variety of prion, of an unrecorded species, together with its eggs.
(c) At the Western Base (Queen Mary Land) eggs of the Antarctic and other petrels were found, and a large rookery of Emperor penguins was located; the second on record. Harrisson, working under difficulties, succeeded in trapping some interesting fish on the bottom in two hundred and fifty fathoms of water.
2. Ship Collections.
(a) A collection made by Mr. E. R. Waite, Curator of the Canterbury Museum, on the first Sub-Antarctic cruise.
(b) A collection made by Professor T. T. Flynn, of Hobart, on the second Sub-Antarctic cruise.
(c) A collection made by Hunter, assisted by Hamilton, in Antarctic waters during the summer of 1913–1914. This comprised deep-sea dredgings at eleven stations in depths down to one thousand eight hundred fathoms and regular tow-nettings, frequently serial, to depths of two hundred fathoms. Six specimens of the rare Ross seal were secured. A large collection of external and internal parasites was made from birds, seals and fish.
Douglas Mawson, Home of the Blizzard (1915)
