704 PENGUIN 
known, first given, as in Hore’s “‘ Voyage to Cape Breton,” 1536 
(Hackluyt, Researches, iii. pp. 168-170), to one inhabiting the seas 
of Newfoundland, which subsequently became known as the Great 
Auk or GARE-FOWL; and, though the French equivalent Pingowin 4 
preserves its old application, at the present day, the word Penguin 
is by English ornithologists always used in a general sense for 
certain Birds inhabiting the Southern Ocean, called by the French 
Manchots, the Spheniscide of ornithologists, which in some respects 
form perhaps the most singular group of the whole Class, or at least 
we may say of the Carinatx. For a long while their position was 
very much misunderstood, some of the best of recent or even living 
systematists having placed them in close company with the Alcidx 
(AUKs), to which they bear only a relationship of analogy, as indeed 
had been perceived by a few ornithologists, who recognized in the 
Penguins a very distinct Order, IMPENNES. The view of the latter 
is hardly likely to be disputed in future, now that the anatomical 
researches of MM. Paul Gervais and Alix (Journ. de Zool. 1877, pp. 
424-470), M. Filhol (Bull. Soc. Philomath. ser. 7, vi. pp. 226-248), 
and above all of Prof. Watson (Zooloay, Voy. Challenger, part xviii.) 
have put the independent position of the Spheniscidex in the clearest 
light.2- The most conspicuous outward character presented by the 
Penguins is the total want of quills in their wings, which are beside 
‘¢pin-winging.” In opposition to the first of these hypotheses it has been urged 
(1) that there is no real evidence of any Welsh discovery of the bird, (2) that it 
is very unlikely for the Welsh, if they did discover it, to have been able to pass 
on their name to English navigators, and (3) that it had not a white head, but 
only a patch of white thereon. To the second hypothesis Prof. Skeat (Etymol. 
Dict. p. 483) objects that it ‘‘ will not account for the suffix -im, and is therefore 
wrong; besides which the ‘Dutchmen’ [who were asserted to be the authors of 
the name] turn out to be Sir Francis Drake” and his men. In support of the 
third hypothesis Mr. Reeks wrote (Zoologist, ser. 2, p. 1854) that the people in 
Newfoundland who used to meet with this bird always pronounced its name 
**Pin-wing.” Prof, Skeat’s enquiry (doc. czt.), whether the name may not after 
all be South-American, is to be answered in the negative, since, so far as evidence 
goes, it was given to the North-American bird before the South-American was 
known in Europe. 
1 Gorfow has also been used by some French writers, being a corruption of 
Geirfugl or Gare-fowl. 
2 Though I cannot wholly agree with Prof. Watson’s conclusions, his remarks 
(pp. 230-232) on the ‘‘ Origin of the Penguins” are worthy of all attention. He 
considers that they are the surviving members of a group that branched off 
early from the primitive ‘‘avian” stem, but that at the time of their separation 
the stem had diverged so far from Reptiles as to possess true wings, though the 
metatarsal bones had not lost their distinctness and become fused into the single 
bone so characteristic of existing Birds. The ancestral Penguin, he argues, must 
have had functional wings, the muscles of which, through atrophy, have been 
converted into non-contractile tendinous bands, and this view agrees practically 
with that taken by Prof. Fiirbringer and Dr. Gadow. 
