FLIGHTLESS BIRDS. 19 
before the metatarsal bones, which were, of course, 
originally separate, had become completely fused into the 
single bone, so characteristic of modern birds, a fusion 
which was, indeed, as complete in the toothed birds of the 
Cretaceous period as in the birds of the present day. So 
that the despised Penguin is of ancient lineage, and has 
very blue blood in his veins. 
But that the ancestral Penguin was a flying bird appears 
to be proved by the researches of Prof. Watson. ‘That 
investigator found, on dissection of the wing of the 
Penguin, that every muscle characteristic of the wing of 
an ordinary flying bird was represented there, but repre- 
sented not by muscular but by tendinous bands, which 
had attachments similar to those of the muscles in ques- 
tion. These tendons being functionally useless, could 
only have been derived through a process of structural 
degeneration from muscle bands, which had at one time 
been functionally active, but the need for which had dis- 
appeared in the different mode of life adopted by the bird, 
the paddle-like wing of the Penguin being moved, as 
before indicated, in a manner different to that required 
for aerial flight. 
Penguins are in places so numerous that they become 
of economic value. Thus, at Dassen Island and adjoining 
islands off the coast of South Africa, the Jackass Penguin, 
Sphenscus demersus, is so abundant that it is actually 
farmed by the Cape Government, the eggs being regularly 
collected and sold for food. Some 300,000 to 400,000 
eggs are annually taken, and the net profit resulting 
therefrom amounts to upwards of £700 a year. 
The only other bird, besides the Penguin, which can 
reasonably be included in this second group of flightless 
birds, is the extinct Great Auk—Alca impennis. Though 
presenting a superficial resemblance to the Penguin, it is 
