If,
however, these dangers were overcome there would still be the difficulty
of making the needful preparations from the eggs. The party would have to
be on the scene at any rate early in July. Supposing that no eggs were
found upon arrival, it would be well to spend the time in labelling the
most likely birds, those for example that have taken up their stations
close underneath the ice-cliffs. And if this were done it would be easier
then to examine them daily by moonlight, if it and the weather generally
were suitable: conditions, I must confess, not always easily obtained at
Cape Crozier. But if by good luck things happened to go well, it would by
this time be useful to have a shelter built of snow blocks on the sea-ice
in which to work with the cooking lamp to prevent the freezing of the egg
before the embryo was cut out, and in order that fluid solutions might
be handy for the various stages of its preparation; for it must be borne
in mind that the temperature all the while may be anything between zero
and -50 deg. F. The whole work no doubt would be full of difficulty, but it
would not be quite impossible, and it is with a view to helping those to
whom the opportunity may occur in future that this outline has been added
of the difficulties that would surely beset their path."[20]
We shall meet the Emperor penguins again, but now we must go back to the
Discovery, lying off Hut Point, with the season advancing and twenty
miles of ice between her and the open sea.
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