546 



PENGUINS. 



grooves. The three front toes are of moderate length and completely webbed; 

 while the first toe is very small, and united to the sides of the metatarsus. 

 Although it is possible that the penguins may have some affinity to the diving- 

 birds, the structure of the metatarsus seems undoubtedly to point to their being an 

 extremely primitive type, since it is difficult to believe that a metatarsus of this kind 

 could have been evolved from the cannon-bone of an ordinary bird by a kind of 

 retrograde evolution. This view is supported by the large number of the rudi- 

 mental wing-feathers, to which allusion has been already made ; and likewise by 

 the circumstance that remains of a very large penguin having been obtained in 

 New Zealand from strata of Eocene age, thus showing the extreme antiquity of 

 the group. It may be added that some writers regard the penguins as constituting 

 a group entirely apart from all the bii*ds hitherto treated, and ranking on an 

 equality with the ostrich-like birds described in a later chapter. 



As already mentioned the penguins are confined to the Southern Hemisphere, 

 where they range from the tropic to about the 80th parallel of south latitude. 

 They are found not only on the Antarctic ice, but in South Africa, South 

 America, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as many of the smaller islands 

 of the southern oceans, more especially the Falklands, Kerguelen, and Tristan 

 da Cunha. Although the whole of the penguins — some twenty in number — 

 are included in the single family Spheniscidce, they are now generally 

 divided into five genera, of which the leading characters may be briefly 

 noticed. The largest members of the whole group are the king-penguin {Apteno- 

 dytes pennanti), of Marion Island, Kerguelen Land, and other districts in the 

 southern ocean, and the still larger emperor-penguin (A. foi'steri), of the Antarctic 

 seas. In addition to their large size, these species, as shown in our coloured Plate, 

 are characterised by the great length and slendemess of the beak, which is slightly 

 arched, and the absence of any crest on the head. In the former the colour of the 

 head, neck, and throat is brownish black ; the region behind the ear having a pear- 

 shaped patch of yellow, continued as a streak down the sides of the neck, and 

 meeting on the upper breast ; while the whole of the upper-parts are iron-grey, 

 and the under surface glistening white, faintly tinged with yellow. In the 

 emperor-penguin the yellow area is limited to a small patch behind the eye. 

 Specimens of this species brought to England by Ross, stand, as mounted, just 

 under 3| feet in height ; while the largest example captured by him weighed 78 

 lbs. Closely allied to these is the gentle penguin (Pygoscelis tceniata), of Kerguelen 

 Land and the Falklands — a species inferior in size only to the king-penguin, and 

 commonly known as the "Johnny." Devoid of a crest, this penguin is dis- 

 tinguished from the preceding by the long and pointed red beak being stouter and 

 more feathered. In colour the plumage of the back is dark blackish and 

 that of the under-parts white ; the dark of the back being continued on to the 

 head, the summit of which is marked by a conspicuous white patch. 



The crested penguins, as represented by the " rock-hopper " (Eudyptes chryso- 

 coma), of the Falkland Islands, the yellow-crested penguin (E. pachyrhynchus), of 

 New Zealand and the Antarctic, and several others, belong to a third genua, 

 characterised by the smaller size of its members, the short, deep, and compressed 

 beak, in which the upper jaw has a distinctive oval form, and the presence of a 



