PALMIPEDES. 



365 



GREAT AUK (Atca Impennis). 



ject that may impede their progress, and then once 

 more continuing their course." They are, in general, 

 large birds, inhabiting the southern extremities of 

 the great continents and adjacent islands, where they 

 are said to excavate the earth into burrows, to de- 

 posit their eggs. 



Mr. Bennett has communicated some particulars of 

 their habits, in a paper read before the Zoological 

 Society. " He describes particularly a colony of 

 these birds (the King Penguin, A. Patachonica,) 

 which covers an extent of thirty or forty acres, at 

 the north end of Macquarrie Island, in the South 



