Order VIL — SPHENISCIFORMES. 
Family-SPHENISCID^, 
Genus— APTENODYTES . 
Aptenodytes Miller, Var. Subjects Nat. Hist., Pt. IV., PI. 23 
(1778) ., .. .. .. .. _ ..A. 'paiagonica. 
Apterodita Scopoli, Del. Flor. et Faun. Insubr., II., p. 91 (1786) 
Pinguinaria Shaw, Mus. Lever., p. 144 (1792) . . . . „ 
Birds of very large size, with the bill about as long as, or not much shorter 
than, the head, and comparatively slender, and curved downwards near the 
tip. No crest. The tail consists of about twenty very short rec trices, which 
are barely longer than the tail-coverts. 
All Penguins are at once known by their peculiarly thick, tight, scale-like 
plumage. The fore-limbs are generally called flippers, as they have no flight- 
feathers, and therefore are more like fins than wings ; they enable the birds to 
swim, but not to fly. The metatarsus is extraordinarily short, being nearly as 
broad as it is long, and has the metatarsal bones more or less separated. All 
Penguins inhabit the southern hemisphere, only one species going as far north 
as the equator. There are at least five species and subspecies in this genus. 
Distribution. — Australia (accidental) and the whole of the Antarctic 
Continent. 
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