. On the natural history and classification of birds . ily, and appear totally incapable of being used forflight, or even for any especial purpose. But on turn-ing to such birds as inhabit the water, and whose wingsare equally short, we find that they are constructed andused in a different manner. However short these mem-bers are among the grebes, they can still be employedto accelerate the speed of the bird; for, when closepressed, we have seen them come to the surface of thewater, and, by a shuffling sort of flight, aided by theirfeet, escape pursuit. The awks probably do the same ;but being
. On the natural history and classification of birds . ily, and appear totally incapable of being used forflight, or even for any especial purpose. But on turn-ing to such birds as inhabit the water, and whose wingsare equally short, we find that they are constructed andused in a different manner. However short these mem-bers are among the grebes, they can still be employedto accelerate the speed of the bird; for, when closepressed, we have seen them come to the surface of thewater, and, by a shuffling sort of flight, aided by theirfeet, escape pursuit. The awks probably do the same ;but being marine birds, their precise manners do notappear to be known. Both families, however, have allthe usual series of feathers, — the primaries, second-aries, and tertials, — so that it is only in the ex- * Latham, Shaw, Sec. f Zool. Trans, vol. i. p. 73. EXTERNAL ANATOMY. WING FEATHERS. $5 treme shortness of their quills that they differ externallyfrom the coots and other short-winged birds whichfly. The wing of the penguin (fig. 4>7-), however,. is of a totally different construction. In form it ismore like the fin of a fish : the feathers assume theappearance of narrow scales, and they lie upon each otherlike the true scales of fishes (a), without any inequalityof size, further than that those adjoining the bones (6)are smaller than such as are placed in the situation ofthe quills, (c) As instruments of flight they are of courseentirely useless; but when the bird is once in the water(which it rarely leaves), their fin-like wings become apair of powerful oars, urging on these birds at a prodi-gious rate. All the accounts, in fact, given by navi-gators, favour the belief that the penguins, howeverhelpless upon land, are yet the swiftest family of swim-mers in the feathered creation, just as the swallows,which represent them among the Insessores, are theswiftest flyers. Thus does Nature, under structures themost opposite, preserve her uniformity of design, andtenaciously ad
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookidonnaturalh, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1836
