BIRDS 381 



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nearly 7 feet high, with a large head and short and 

 massive neck. The beak is extremely large and com- 

 pressed, and quite without teeth. The wings were 

 greatly reduced, as in the cassowary, and the bird was 

 wholly unable to fly. Although fragments of Diatryma 

 were discovered in New Mexico in 1874, no one had any 

 accurate idea of the nature of the bird until Mr. W. 

 Stein found a nearly complete skeleton in Wyoming 

 in 1916. 



Passing over about three million years, we come to Birdsofthe 

 the deposits of the Rancho La Brea, near Los Angeles, 

 California. Here a great number of bones of mammals 

 and birds are found embedded in asphalt, which belongs 

 to the Pleistocene period, and is thousands but not 

 millions of years old. The very numerous birds, which 

 were entrapped by the tar which still comes to the sur- 

 face in the locality, have not yet been fully described. 

 Their structure was, however, essentially like that of 

 living species, the modernized type of bird having fully 

 evolved at the time represented by the deposits. 



9. Coming now to the living birds, we can notice 

 only some of the principal groups, regarded as Orders. 



(a) Sphenisciformes. Penguins, a group of marine Penguins 

 birds, confined to the antarctic regions, ex- 

 tending as far north as Australia and the 

 southern end of South America. They are 

 quite incapable of flight, the wings being re- 

 duced to flappers which are used in swimming. 

 These strange birds abound on the coasts of 

 the antarctic continent. Here the Emperor 

 Penguin, a large and handsome species, nests 

 at the coldest season of the year, in darkness, 

 with the temperature 25 to 75 degrees below 

 zero. 



