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CHAPTER XX. 



Penguins Fin-winged. King Penguin of the Southern Regions 

 described Breeding-places Valuable for Oil. Sea-Fowler's 

 perilous occupation Description of, in Shetland, St. Kilda, 

 &c. Singular Escapes Fatal Accidents. 



HITHERTO we have considered birds as more or less 

 inhabitants of the air, gifted with wings for that pur- 

 pose: it remains for us to speak of two families, pos- 

 sessing indeed wings, but too small to assist them in 

 flight, and used therefore only as fish use their fins, for 

 giving them additional 

 powers on, or beneath 

 the surface of the wa- 

 ter, where they pass 

 the greater part of their 

 existence. They are 

 the Penguins, properly 

 so called, and the Apte- 

 nodytes, a word com- 

 pounded from the 

 Greek, signifying wing- 

 less divers; for although 

 the wings of the former 

 scarcely deserve the 

 name, they are never- 

 theless covered to a cer- 



Penguin. 



tain degree with fea- 

 thers, whereas those of 

 the latter are only furnished with vestiges of feathers, 

 at first sight much resembling fish-scales. 



The Penguins are chiefly confined to the coldest re- 

 gions of the northern or southern hemispheres. The 

 rapidity with which these birds fly, if it may be so 



