PETRELS — PENGUINS 3 i 7 



only a small proportion were relieved of their duties during that night, thus 

 indicating that the sitting bird must go for four or five consecutive days at a 

 time without tasting food. In February young petrels may be found in various 

 stages of development, some still in the downy state, but others well feathered. 

 Till able to fish for themselves the young petrels are fed every night with about 

 a teaspoonful of oily paste, principally compounded from the minute crustaceans 

 known to sailors as ' whale-food.' This is regurgitated by the old birds as they 

 enter the burrows, where they are welcomed with a purring note by their offspring. 

 On arrival the parent bird opens its beak to the fullest extent over the head of 

 the nestling, which in turn thrusts its own open beak into the parental mouth or 

 gullet, there to receive the regurgitated food. 



Another common but much larger petrel is the so-called mutton-bird (Puffinus 

 brevicauda), which breeds in thousands on the coasts of Australia and New 

 Zealand, and derives its vernacular name from its reputed excellence as a table- 

 bird. Petrels and their relatives are probably attracted to such southerly regions 

 by the extraordinary abundance of food to be found immediately north of the 

 ice-barrier, some of these visitors making their appearance in autumn after the 

 breeding-season, while others may be non-breeding birds which spend the whole 

 summer in the South Antarctic. That the Arctic tern, after breeding in the Far 

 North, should visit the opposite pole is a most remarkable fact in geographical 

 distribution. 



In many respects the diving-petrels of the genus Pelecanoides differ from 

 their kindred and approximate to auks in general appearance when seen from a 

 distance, although they conform to the true petrel type in all essential points of 

 structure. The best known of the three species frequenting the New Zealand 

 coasts is P. urinatrix, which is blackish grey above and white beneath. 



By far the most remarkable and characteristic group of birds 



Pcntruins. 



inhabiting the Antarctic are those now universally known as 

 penguins, although properly speaking the name penguin belongs to the extinct 

 great auk of the Northern Hemisphere. Penguins, which form by themselves a 

 separate order of birds, are an' exclusively southern group, members of which 

 swarm on the Antarctic pack-ice and also frequent the shores of the southern 

 islands and continents. They have no near relatives among either recent or 

 extinct birds, and differ from all other birds in the structure of their wings and 

 feet, the former of which act as paddles in swimming, and are quite useless for 

 flight. So far as can be determined, penguins appear to have always had their 

 headquarters in the Antarctic, to which some of the species are restricted. 

 They breed on the Pacific coast of South America from Peru to Patagonia 

 and the Falklands, as well as on the coasts of South Africa, Australia, New 

 Zealand, and nearly all the islands of the Antarctic, and likewise on the Antarctic 

 continent itself. 



The penguin family, Spheniscidce, is divisible into several distinct generic 

 groups, among which the short-tailed penguins of the genus Spheniscus range 

 farthest north. Of this group a well-known representative is the black-footed 

 penguin (S. demersus) of South Africa, which is about twenty inches in height 

 when standing erect. Like other penguins, these birds dart along under water 



