58 Wonders of the Bird World 



of the Order, the Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri}, 

 is only found in the region of the icy barrier towards the 

 South Pole. The King Penguin (A. patachonica\ of which 

 the accompanying illustration is a portrait, is somewhat 

 more widely distributed, and is found from the Falkland 

 Islands and the Straits of Magellan to Kerguelen and the 

 islands off the south of New Zealand. Young Penguins 

 are thickly covered with down, and the King Penguins 

 which have lived in the Zoological Gardens have retained 

 their clothing of brown down until they have almost 

 reached the size of the adults. The upright position in 

 which the birds habitually sit requires undoubtedly much 

 strength of limb, and we find that, in the Penguins, the legs 

 are very short and that the metatarsus is extremely broad 

 and powerful, the three principal bones being more distinct 

 throughout life than in other birds, and divided one from 

 the other by deep grooves. The whole body of the Penguin 

 is covered with small scale-like feathers, differing from those 

 of other birds in the great breadth of the shaft and the 

 small size of the vane ; and as there are no quills or 

 flight-feathers, the wings are more like fins in appearance. 

 The bones are also modified in a parallel manner to the 

 anterior limbs of Whales and Porpoises, being flattened 

 and jointed in such a way that there is very little allowance 

 for motion at the elbow and wrist, while the pollex or first 

 digit is immovably fused with that of the second. Another 

 remarkable peculiarity in the Penguin's osteology is the 

 great breadth of the scapula or shoulder-blade, all these 

 modifications of the skeleton tending to an enormous 

 increase of swimming power. 



The species alluded to in the present chapter are only 

 a few out of hundreds of others I might have chosen, each 

 exhibiting some striking characteristic, and that I have 

 not exhausted the wonderful birds will be seen in the 



