OSTEOLOGY OF THE PENGUINS. 391 



In his scheme of the classification of birds, Furbringer awards 

 them a suborder, and places them between two other suborders, 

 the first containing the Petrels, and the last the Ichthyornithi- 

 formes ; in other words, between the Tiibinares and the extinct 

 cretaceous ichthyonine birds. 



Steineger has said : " Little is known as yet as to the geo- 

 logical history of the penguins, except that it dates back to the 

 upper eocene at least, since fossil bones (humerus, coracoids, 

 and metatarsus) of a gigantic form, Falcceudyptes antarcticus, 

 have been found in strata of that age in Xew Zealand. This 

 form stood from six to seven feet high, or higher than an 

 average man ! We have here a distinct evidence of the great 

 age of the group, as might also be inferred from their remote- 

 ness from all other known birds. Their relations seem to be 

 with the other schizognathous Natatores, rather than with any 

 other, but the exact affinities are very obscure." 



In a footnote to the article " Penguin '' in his Dictionary of 

 Birds (p. 704), Professor Newton has said : " Though I cannot 

 wholly agree with Professor 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 otf 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 Penguins, he argues, must have had functional 

 wings, the muscles of which, through atrophy, have been con- 

 verted into non-contractile tendinous bands, and this view 

 agrees practically with that taken by Professor Fiirbringer and 

 Dr Gadow." 



There remains but one family of Penguins in existence, so far 

 as known, — the Spheniscidm (or Aptenodytidce). To indicate 

 their low morphological rank and their great age in geological 

 times in a tabular or linear scheme of classification, 1 place 

 them after the supersuborder Odontuholcece. In doing this, how- 

 ever, their extreme isolation as an aquatic group of birds must 

 be borne in mind. 



There are at least four good genera of Penguins known, and 



