1 86 CHARACTERS OF VERTEBRATE ANIMALS 



Order i8. — Penguins (Impennes) 



Penguins are web-footed birds with reduced great toe, re- 

 sembling the divers in a number of particulars, but still better 

 adapted to an aquatic life, as is seen especially in the wings, 

 which are useless for the purpose of flight and are transformed 

 into flippers covered with very numerous scale - like feathers. 

 The hind-limbs, in which the tarso-metatarsal region is unusually 

 short, are fixed to the body very far back, and the small tail, 

 unprovided with efficient quills, serves as a prop by which the 

 body is steadied in the upright position which is habitual on 

 land. The long, straight beak, somewhat flattened laterally and 

 with a sharp point, is well adapted for seizing and holding the 

 fish which constitute the chief food. Penguins have a very wide 

 range along the. shores of the continents and islands south of the 

 equator, flocks of them being abundant even on the desolate 

 Antarctic coast. Few birds, if any, are so remarkable in appear- 

 ance, and they have attracted the attention of all travellers in 

 southern seas. 



As examples may be taken the Emperor Penguin {Aptenodytes 

 Forsteri) of the Antarctic regions, which is about 3^^ feet high; 

 the King Penguin {Aptenodytes Pennantt) (fig. 127) of Kerguelen 

 Land ; and the Blue Penguin {Eudyptula minor) of South Australia 

 and New Zealand, which is less than half that size. 



II. Running Birds (Ratitse). — These birds, of which the 

 most familiar form is the African ostrich, are mostly large, while 

 all are flightless, this being to some extent compensated by the 

 possession of unusual powers of rapid progression on the ground. 

 The group is essentially one belonging to the southern hemi- 

 sphere. 



Inability to fly is associated with a number of structural 

 features, foremost among which is a great reduction in the size of 

 the wings. There are also a number of characteristic features 

 about the plumage, which is not arranged in definite tracts as in 

 flying birds (see p. 142). The quills, which in ordinary birds play 

 such an important part in flight, are here much reduced, and the 

 barbules of the feathers are not connected together by booklets. 

 The vertebrae of the tail are not fused together into a plough- 

 share-bone as in flying birds, there being no efficient tail-quills to 

 support. The name of the group (Lat. rates, a raft) has reference 



