William S Bruce viaWikimedia Commons// Public field
In 1902 , Scotland sent Internet Explorer on an official internal expedition to Antarctica , headed up by diametrical scientist and naturalistWilliam S. Bruce . In a unambiguously Scotch eddy , the two - year - long Scottish National Antarctic Expedition included a positioning that belike no other nation found necessary : an official bagpiper .
Gilbert Kerr , the official piper of theScotiacrew , was tax with maintaining esprit de corps — but he became a postcard ikon by posing for the photo above , in which he played the bagpipe in full Highland dress next to an Emperor penguin . The bird , agree to theRoyal Scottish Geographic Society , “ was tethered to a big cooking - pot packed full of snow . ” The photographwas takenby Bruce in March 1904 while theScotiawas stuck in the shabu on the Weddell Sea .
The idea of Kerr bring out the bagpipe for a bunch of penguin was apparently also intend to test the effect of music on them , according to the 1906 record of the voyage by Bruce and other members of the expedition , The Voyage of the ‘ Scotia ’ : Being the phonograph record of a Voyage of Exploration in Antarctic Seas . The penguins were not impressed . The explorers wrote that “ there was no excitement , no sign of appreciation or disfavor , only sleepy-eyed nonchalance . ” They further noted that “ it was just all that one valet could do to lead one up to the ship : with their beaks they bit fairly hard , and with their long fin - same wings could hit out decidedly severe . ” Kerr ’s bagpipes were afterwards donated to a Scottish battalion during World War I and lost at the Battle of the Somme .
These day , of course , frigid adventurer would not be allowed to marry a penguin to a pot for a photo op . All south-polar wildlife is protected , and the continent is a nature preserve . However , in Antarctic atmospheric condition , it ’s potential that the man in a kilt ( it ’s laborious to tell in black and blank , but those look like simple legs above his socks ) was almost as uncomfortable as the violent penguin tied to a kitchen deal . And who know which wretched crew extremity got bitten in the process .
