PENGUINS. 59 



and islands of an ocean seldom visited by other men than the sealer, and whaler, and 

 the few fortunate naturalists who are permitted to see for themselves that peculiar 

 animal life of that distant region, while we will have to content ourselves with what 

 we can learn from the best of their accounts. 



We recognize three different types of penguins, represented by the king penguin, the 

 jackass penguin, and the rock-hopper, three well-defined groups of generic, or perhaps, 

 rather, super-generic rank, which we shall call Aptenodytes, Spheniscus, and Catarractes. 



The largest and one of the oldest and best known forms is the king penguin, the type of 

 Aptenodytes, a genus easily distinguished by the size, and the length and slenderness of 

 the bill, which is slightly arched, with which are associated a great number of anatom- 

 ical characters; for instance, the persistence throughout life of the intermaxillary 

 suture, the absence of a complete coracoid foramen for the transmission of the nerve 

 to the middle pectoral muscle, the absence of any differentiation of syringeal from 

 the adjoining tracheal rings, the presence of a tracheal septum, etc. With the Apten- 

 odytes proper are here associated the members of the group usually called Pygoscelis, 

 which have the bill stouter and more feathered, and the tail longer. 



Best known is A. longirostris, the king penguin of the Falkland Islands, Kerguelen 

 Island, and some other rocks and islands in the Antarctic Ocean. The color of the 

 back is a mixture of slate-color and black, the under parts of the body white, head and 

 throat black, a stripe from behind the eyes, down the sides of the neck, yellow, as is 

 also the anterior part of the latter. The nearly related A. patachonica is larger, the 

 base of the lower mandible and the tarsus more feathered. The accompanying plate 

 represents A. longirostris, in regard to which Professor Moseley's criticism of another 

 drawing is equally applicable. He says : " In the figure the birds' heads are drawn as 

 if held horizontally. This is unnatural. The head and neck should be stretched out 

 vertically, quite straight, with the tips of the beak pointed directly upwards." The 

 same gentleman says that the king penguin stands as high as a man's middle, and when 

 disturbed, made a loud sound like ' urr-urr-urr? At Marion Island he obtained an egg 

 which was of a uniform chalky white, pyriform in shape, and measuring 4.4 by 3.0 

 inches. 



Dr. J. H. Kidder had good facilities of observing A. papua at their breeding-places 

 on Kerguelen Island, and has given a very interesting account of his experience (Bull. 

 U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 2), from which we take pleasure in copying the following : " No 

 living thing that I ever saw expresses so graphically a state of hurry as a penguin, 

 when trying to escape. Its neck is stretched out, flippers \vhirring like the sails of a 

 windmill, and body wagging from side to side, as its short legs make stumbling and 

 frantic efforts to get over the ground. There is such an expression of anxiety written 

 all over the bird ; it picks itself up from every fall, and stumbles again with such an air 

 of having an armful of bundles, that it escapes capture quite as often by the laughter of 

 the pursuer as by its own really considerable speed." 



The jackass penguins (Spheniscns} have received their name from their voice, which 

 is said to be very like the braying of donkeys. Their bills are straight and moderately 

 short, but very stout and deep ; the tip of the upper mandible is hooked, and that of 

 the lower one truncate. Of anatomical characters the great development of the trans- 

 verse temporal crest, the relatively slight curvature of the zygomatic arch, and the 

 relative great length of the metatarsus, are among the more noteworthy features. 

 Several species are known, of which the Australian S. minor, with white throat and 

 without any dark collar, probably requires recognition as a separate genus, Bonaparte's 



