REPORT ON THE BIRDS— STEGANOPODES AND IMPENNES. 125 



" There was not a blade of grass on the rock, but it was covered with guano, with 

 little pools of filthy green water. The birds nested under big stones, wherever there was 

 place for them. Most of the nests were, however, quite in the open. The nests 

 were formed of small stones and shells of a Balanus, of which there were heaps 

 washed up by the surf, and of old bits of wood, nails, and bits of rope, picked up 

 about the ruins of a hut which were rotting on the island, together with an old sail, 

 some boats' spars, and bags of guano, evidently left behind by guano-seekers. The 

 object of thus making the nest is no doubt to some extent to secure drainage in case of 

 rain, and to keep the eggs out of water washing over the rocks ; but the birds evidently 

 have a sort of magpie-like delight in curiosities. Spheniscus magellanicus at the Falk- 

 land Islands similarly collects variously coloured pebbles at the mouth of its burrow. 

 Two pairs of the birds had built inside the ruins of the hut. 



" All the birds fought furiously, and were very hard to kill. They make a noise very 

 like the braying of donkeys, hence their name ; they do not hop, but run or waddle. 

 They do not leap out of the water like the crested Penguin when swimming, but merely 

 come to the surface and sit there like ducks for a while, and dive again. We drass;ed 



' O CO 



off a number in the boat for stuffing, and took young and eggs ; the old ones fought hard 

 in the boat, and tried to bite one another's eyes out." 



4. Spheniscus magellanicus, Forst. (PL XXVIII.). 



Aptenodytes magellanicus, Forst., Nov. Comm. Gott., vol. iii. p. 143, tab. 5. 



Spheniscus magellanicus, Scl., Proc. Zool. Soc, 1860, p. 382; Scl. et Salv., Ibid., 1878, p. 653. 



Spheniscus demersus, var. magellanicus, Coues, Proc. Ac. Phil., 1872, p. 209. 



[No. 689. Male. Port Churrucha^ 



The only one seen. Eyes hazel ; the stomach had many portions of fish, some of 

 considerable size ; upper part of the feet white ; bill black or slate coloured. 



No. 741. Young female. Falklands. 



Eyes brown. Stomach had fish.] 



The plate (XXVIII.) represents the two specimens collected. 



In the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia for 1872, Dr Coues 

 has written an excellent article upon the Spheniscidas. But he appears to us to have 

 been quite in error in classing this species as a variety of Spheniscus demersus, the two 

 birds in adult plumage being, as will be seen from the accompanying figures, quite 

 different in plumage. 



Of Sj)heniscus demersus we have had many examples living in the Zoological Society's 

 gardens, and the species is now well known to us. When adult they never fail to arrive 

 at the plumage shown in Plate XXVII. The present species is of about the same size as 

 Spheniscus demersus, and it might be perhaps not always easy to distinguish the young 

 birds, such as is shown in Plate XXVIII. fig. 2. But in the adult of Spheniscus magel- 



