GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS 



insular habitat. The absence of dangerous enemies, which 

 prey upon the birds and upon their eggs and young, makes 

 flight less essential to their existence. Very often, too, the 

 prevalence of violent winds makes it advantageous for both 

 birds and insects to remain on or near the ground, and not 

 to attempt high or long flights, which involve the risk of 

 being blown out to sea. Many birds do cross the sea for 

 long distances when carried away by storms, but when land 

 birds are so swept from the land they are likely to be 

 destroyed. Most people who have taken a sea voyage have 

 seen land birds, far out at sea, come aboard the ship, 

 exhausted from their long flight, to rest in the rigging. 

 Occasionally these waifs And new homes in remote lands, 

 which have doubtless in this way received their bird 

 inhabitants. 



In the Galapagos there is a flightless cormorant, which 

 lives by Ashing in the sea. The penguins, those remarkable 

 birds whose wings have been converted into swimming pad- 

 dles or flippers, live on islands in the seas of the southern 

 hemisphere, where they are safe from the attacks of enemies. 

 The extinct dodo was a large, flightless pigeon, which lived 

 on the island of Mauritius until it was exterminated by 

 sailors and by introduced pigs. Another flightless pigeon, 

 also extinct, was the solitaire of the Isle de Bourbon. New 

 Zealand had many very large flightless birds, the moas, 

 which were destroyed by the Maoris when they settled the 

 islands; and the flightless,^ almost wingless, little kiwi 

 (Apteryx) still lives in New Zealand. It is true that some 

 flightless birds, such as the African ostrich and the South 

 American rhea, live on the continents, but these are large and 

 strong birds and very swift runners, and are therefore able to 

 escape the large beasts of prey and to defend themselves 

 against the smaller ones. 



[99] ^ 



