378 CLASS XVI. 



Family I. Brevipennes s. Urinatores. Wings short, in some 

 unfit for flying. Tail very short. Feet averse, short, with tibige 

 concealed more or less within the skin of trunk. Gait difficult, 

 erect. 



Short-ivinged. — These birds are thickly covered with feathers, 

 which have often a silvery glance. They can swim under water, 

 and use their wings as fins. They live mostly on animal food; 

 they lay their eggs on the ground or in holes. Some are quite 

 unable to fly. 



Phalanx I. Impennes. Wings unfit for flying, fin-shaped, 

 minute, without quill-feathers, covered with short, imbricate plumes 

 with flattened quill. Bill cultrate. Feet very short, with hallux 

 small, connate with the internal part of tarsus, turned forward. 

 Covering of tarsus reticulato-granulate. Interdigital membrane 

 excised. Short tail formed of a fasciculus of rigid feathers. (Genus 

 Aptenodytes FoRST., Gm., Illig.) 



The Penguins, les manchots. These birds live in the seas of the 

 southern hemisphere, on the coasts of South Africa, South America, 

 principally at Terra del Fuego, and the solitary islands of the 

 southern Pacific. Some species extend to New Guinea and the 

 western coast of America nearly to the line. Their upright pos- 

 ture and gait give them a strange appearance, especially when at 

 the brooding time they congregate in large flocks; see for instance 

 the plate in Cook's Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, (1776 — 1780). 

 London, 1784, Atlas, PL 4. View of Christmas Harbour. 



The breast-bone is deeply incised behind on each side ; the scapula is 

 large and broad and flat behind. The humerus, the ulna and the radius 

 are very flat ; the last two bones form with the first, not an acute, but 

 rather an angle in some degree obtuse. 



Aptenodytes Cuv., Gray. Bill slender, long, slightly cmwed 

 at the point. Upper mandible covered with plumes as far as the 

 nostrils ; groove extending from nostrils to the point of the man- 

 dible. 



Sp. Aptenodytes patagonica FoRST., Buff. PI. cnl. 975, Guerin Iconogr., 

 Ois. PI. 61, fig. I, Lesson Ornith. PI. 119, fig. 2; principally in the 

 circuit of the straits of Magellan, and not only on the Falkland Islands 

 lying to the east, but also westward on the groups of islands extending far 

 into the southern Pacific. It is the largest species of this family; the 



