429 
CHAPTER XX. 
Penguins — Fin- winged — King Penguin of the Southern Regions 
described — Breeding-Places — Valuable for Oil. — Sea-Fowler’s 
perilous occupation — Description of, in Shetland, St. Kilda, 
&c. — Singular Escapes — Fatal Accidents. 
H ITHERTO we have considered birds as more or less 
inhabitants of the air, gifted with wings for that 
purpose: it remains for us to speak of two families, pos- 
sessing, indeed, wings, but too small to assist them in flight, 
and used, therefore, 
only as fish use their 
fins, for giving them 
additional powers on, 
or beneath, the surface 
of the water, where 
they pass the greater 
part of their existence. 
They are the Penguins, 
properly so called, and 
the Aptenodytes, a 
word compounded from 
the Greek, signifying 
wingless divers ; for 
although the wings of 
the former scarcely 
deserve the name, they 
are nevertheless co- Penguin, 
vered to a certain 
degree with feathers, whereas those of the latter are only 
furnished with vestiges of feathers, at first sight much 
resembling fish-scales. 
The Penguins are chiefly confined to the coldest regions 
of the northern or southern hemispheres. The rapidity 
with which these birds fly, if it may be so termed, under 
