166 PENGUINS. [CH. Ill 



amount to positive identity of species; and moreover of 

 species whose identity is exceedingly remarkable in rela- 

 tion to the problem offered for solution. 



That the Penguins should extend throughout the 

 whole antarctic area from New Zealand to Patagonia is 

 not so remarkable a fact; there is no need of evolving 

 a continent for the convenience of these almost marine 

 birds, or even to explain the wide range of the purely ant- 

 arctic Chionis. Nor do the arguments, such as they are, 

 which are to be derived from a study of the range of the 

 living "struthious" birds appear to have overwhelming 

 force ; both Penguins and struthious birds are in all pro- 

 bability the remnants of ancient types ; and their relega- 

 tion to the southernmost half of the globe is as much 

 in accord with the polar origin of life dealt with elsewhere 

 as with a former extensive antarctic continent. Besides 

 the struthious birds are not now regarded as belonging 

 to one family; they seem really to form an assemblage 

 of the remains of more than one family. The distribution 

 of the struthious birds both living and extinct may 

 be brought forward as evidence of the former north- 

 ward extension of the antarctic continent. Kecent dis- 

 coveries in the Argentine have an important bearing upon 

 the matter ; the evidence takes us back to the middle and 

 even to the beginning of the tertiary period ; this how- 

 ever is nothing to be surprised at ; the connection between 

 the existing land masses and the antarctic continent, if it 

 ever existed at all, must have been very ancient, as the 

 stretch of ocean now dividing them is so wide. As is 

 unfortunately the rule with extinct species known by 



