^^THE steamer/^ 
287 
siderable time under the water, it has some distant resem- 
blance to the penguins, inhabitants of the same rough 
ocean. Mr. Darwin says that it feeds entirely on shell- 
fish from the kelp and tidal rocks; hence the beak and 
head, for the purpose of breaking them, are surprisingly 
heavy and strong. So strong is the head, that I have been 
scarcely able to fracture it with my geological hammer ; 
and all our sportsmen soon discovered how tenacious these 
birds were of life. When pluming themselves in the even- 
ing in a flock, they make the same odd mixture of sounds 
which bull-frogs do within the tropics'^."'^ It is a bird of 
large size, sometimes weighing twenty-two pounds. Cap- 
tain King described it under the name of Oidemia Fata- 
chonica ; Messrs. Quoy and Gaimard placed it in a genus 
[MicropteTMs) which they formed for its reception. It is 
the Micropterus cinereus of Mr. G. Gray, who places it in 
his subfamily FuligulmcB, close to the Scoters {Oidemia), 
with which it agrees in many particulars, especially in the 
lobated hind-toe and the backward position of its legs, — 
peculiarities of all the ducks which seek their food on the 
sea. 
No one unacquainted with the Arctic regions and the ex- 
* Journal, p. 258. 
