196 
A PENGUIN COLONY. 
might, it is true, be relegated to some other division of the Animal 
World, for fly they cannot. The wing in them is little else than a 
paddle-like fin, covered with short stiff feathers, resembling scales. 
Their legs, too, are very w-Jibird-like in structure ; they are situated 
so completely at the hinder end of the body as to force it, when at 
rest, into an erect attitude ; while the tarsi are short and thick, and 
the toes are webbed. The tail is short, or it would be very much in 
the way ; and, altogether, we are quite ready to grant the oddity of 
appearance, so long as the penguin is seen only upon land. The 
truth is, he is essentially an aquatic bird ; the waters are his natural 
home, and he seldom visits the shore except for breeding purposes. 
His habitat is the rocky isles of the Southern Ocean, the floating 
packs of ice that spread over the Antarctic waters, and the bleak 
coasts of Patagonia and Chili. As a swimmer, his power and dexterity 
are wonderful; and with his exceptional, paddle-like wings he cuts his 
way like an arrow, or like anything else that is exceedingly swift, 
through the stormiest billows. 
Mr. G. Bennett, the naturalist, fell in with a penguin colony on 
Macquarrie Island, in the South Pacific. Within an area of thirty or 
forty acres, an immense number were collected ; some thirty or forty 
thousand landing during the day and night, and as many going out 
again to sea. When on shore they were arranged in a manner as 
compact, and in ranks as regular, as a regiment of soldiers ; the young 
birds having a quarter of their own, as well as the moulting birds, the 
sitting hens, the clean birds, and so on. In Dr. Richardson's proposed 
City of Health, the method and order cannot be more exact and praise- 
worthy. " No trespassing allowed," is the rule in each section ; and if 
a moulting bird should intrude among those which have passed through 
that disagreeable process, he is ignominiously expelled. 
But it is to Inaccessible Island that we are fain to convey our 
readers. It was visited by the Challenger, on her recent scientific 
expedition ; and Lord George Campbell, one of her officers, has recorded 
a truly graphic account of this penguin settlement. 
The species flourisliing there is the crested gorfew, which may 
be thus described : Crest on the top of the head, the outside feathers 
