CHAP. IV. 



FLIGHT OF BIRDS. 



103 



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proach of an enemy at a very considerable distance. 

 No birds can be more unlike each other, than an ostrich 

 and a penguin ; yet they agree in some very remarkable 

 particulars: both have wings incapable of flight, those 

 of the penguin (fig.26.) hav- 

 ing much of the appearance 

 of fins, or paddles ; and both 

 owe their safety, not so much 

 to these members, as to their 

 feet. This, at first, seems 

 impossible ; since the feet of 

 the penguin are remarkably 

 short, while those of the os- 

 trich are quite the reverse. 

 To explain this, however, it 

 must be remembered that the 

 penguin swims with the ve- 

 locity of an arrow : its feet, 

 wruch barely enable it to stand upright upon the shore, 

 are particularly formed for swimming ; while the two 

 short wings, of no more use to the bird, for the pur- 

 poses of flight, than those of the ostrich, become pow- 

 erful instruments, like a pair of oars. The bird, in fact, 

 may be said to possess four fins ; or, at least, four 

 members which perform that office so effectually, that 

 its rapidity of motion has been said to be prodigious. 

 The last of the semi-apterous genera we shall notice 

 is that of the dodo, a bird now extinct, but of which 

 the foot and bill still exist in the British Museum. 

 The former of these relics shows how little this bird 

 was capable of running ; and to this peculiarity, joined 

 to an equal feebleness of wing, may, probably, be attri- 

 buted the extirpation of the most anomalous bird if 

 such a term can be allowed that has ever existed in 

 the memory of man. 



(125.) A short enumeration of the other motions of 



birds will conclude our remarks upon this class. The 



faculty of diving, like swimming, is confined to two of 



the orders only, the Grallatores, or waders, and the 



H 4 



