IMPENNES SPHENI8CUS 515 



Order XX. IMPENNES. 



The Penguins which constitute this order have their wings 

 modified to form paddles ; there are no wing quills differentiated 

 from the other feathers and the limb-bones are flattened and in- 

 flexible ; the skull is schizognathous and holorhinal, there are 

 no basipterygoid processes ; the three metatarsal bones are short, 

 and separated from one another by deep grooves, not fused into one 

 bone, as in all other birds ; the feathering is continuous, an after- 

 shaft is present; oil gland tufted; accessory semitendinosus, alone 

 of the five Garrodian thigh-muscles absent ; young hatched help- 

 less and covered with down. 



The Penguins are confined to the Southern and Antarctic seas, 

 one species only extending as far north as the Galapagos Islands 

 which are situated on the Equator in the Pacific. 



The affinities of this Order are rather obscure ; the wing- and 

 feet-characters are probably due to degradation and not archaic, but 

 the group is an old one and remains of fossil Penguins have been 

 found in the Tertiary deposits of New Zealand. All the species may 

 be grouped in one family, two genera of which have each a single 

 representative in our Fauna. 



Key of the Genera. 



A. No crest ; tail very short and concealed by the 



upper tail-coverts Spheniscus, p. 515. 



B. A crest edged on either side by a bunch of yellow 



superciliary feathers ; tail comparatively long and 



not concealed Catarrliactes, p. 520. 



Genus I. SPHENISCUS. 



Type. 

 Spheniscus, Brisson, Orn. vi, p. 97 (1760) .■ S. demursus. 



Bill stout and rather deep, the basal portion roughened and 

 furrowed with longitudinal ridges ; tip of the upper mandible down- 

 curved and fitting between the abruptly truncated rami of the lower 

 one ; groove dividing the culminicorn from the latericorn incon- 

 spicuous ; a bare space round and above the eye ; no elongated crest- 

 feathers ; tail short, not reaching the tip of the toes, composed of 

 18 or 20 feathers almost concealed by the upper tail-coverts ; feet 

 stout and strong, fully webbed. Size moderate. 



