So, Merri set out to find some answers using a database of CT scanned sternums from 105 different bird species, like the Red-capped lark, Leach's Storm petrel and the Southern cassowary.
General Gordon and his family had graciously accepted, Alexander Stephens would be present if his ever-uncertain health permitted and even Bob Toombs, the stormy petrel of the Confederacy, was expected.
From the lounge, where I was writing up the incidents of this excursion to the polar continent, I could hear the calls of petrel and albatross cavorting in the midst of the turmoil.
The countryside is dominated by steep mountains and there are about 70,000 sheep and some 2 million pairs of sea birds, including the largest colony of storm petrels in the world.
So the petrels called to the mollys: but they were so busy and greedy, gobbling and peeking and spluttering and fighting over the blubber, that they did not take the least notice.
So the good-natured petrels said that they would show him part of the way themselves, but they were only going as far as Jan Mayen's Land; and after that he must shift for himself.