CHAPTER XXXVI 

 ORDER OF FLIGHTLESS DIVERS 



IMPENNES 



NO matter where man may go, on land or sea, or polar 

 ice-pack, Nature holds birds in readiness to welcome him. 



When Peary reached the point of land that is nearest the 

 north pole, at the northeastern extremity of Greenland, on 

 July 4, 1892, he found there the snow bunting, sandpiper, 

 raven, Greenland falcon and ptarmigan. On the great arctic 

 ice-floe, at Latitude 82° 40', Nansen saw the fulmar {Pro- 

 cellaria glacialis) and the black guillemot, and a little later 

 the ivory gull, little auk and Ross's gull. When Captain 

 Scott penetrated the awful solitudes of the antarctic conti- 

 nent, in 1911, he found there flocks of large and very strange 

 birds. His party had an opportunity to study the won- 

 derful Emperor Penguin^ in its haunts, such as never be- 

 fore had been secured by naturalists. For the first time that 

 wonderful bird was secured on the films of a moving-picture 

 camera. 



This species is the largest of the wingless and flightless 

 swimming birds. In bulk it is about the size of our great 

 white pelican. Its height is 33^^ feet, and it stands as erect 

 as any soldier on parade. In its erect posture its wings seem 



' Ap-te-no-dy'tes fos'ter-i. 

 273 



