ORDER PALMIPEDES. G.37 



The Alca Impennis, or Great Auk, very seldom removes 

 from the highest latitudes, and lives habitually on the floating 

 icebergs of the Arctic Pole. It always remains upon the 

 water, except during the time of propagation, when it places 

 in the clefts of rocks, a nest, in which the female deposits an 

 eg^y as big as a swan's, of an Isabella- white, with many black 

 stripes and spots, resembling Chinese characters. It would 

 seem that the food of this species is partly marine vegetables, 

 and partly fish of certain species. 



The division Aitenodytes, Manchots in French, comes 

 under the title Pinguin in Latham. Our navigators to the 

 Austral Seas have always designated the birds which consti- 

 tute it, by the same name, but certainly most erroneously, for 

 there are not only strong differences of generic character be- 

 tween the pinguins and manchots, but they inhabit exactly 

 the opposite latitudes of the globe. 



These birds are of all the feathered race the most totally 

 unprovided %vith the characteristic faculty of their class. 

 Instead of wings furnished with quills, they have nothing but 

 simple pendant winglets, covered only with the rudiments of 

 feathers resembling scales. In the water these perform the 

 office of oars or fins, and out of that element, can assist merely 

 in preserving the equilibrium of the bird in its vacillating 

 w^alk. 



These birds are found only in the Antarctic Seas and Islands, 

 while nature appears to have assigned to the pinguins the 

 northern seas as their peculiar sojourn. Their neck is short 

 and thick, their skin hard aad thick, like that of a pig, and 

 their belly covered with a great quantity of fat. On land, 

 from the position of their feet, they hold themselves upright, 

 as if sitting on the crupper. Assembled in flocks, they seem, 

 at a distance, like so many children, and inclining their heads 

 to one side and the other. They are easil}^ aj^proached, and 

 knocked down with stones and sticks. We should not, how- 



