Animal life in the sea and on the land . SWIMMING-BIRDS. !>G9 at their sides and covered with short scale-like feathers,are entirely useless for flying, but they answer very wellin swimming and in scrambling upon the rocks. 16. Penguins live only in the Southern Hemisphere,while their distant cousins, the auks and guillemots, havetheir home in the North. They spend most of the time inthe water, and are often found at a great distance fromland. When they come on shore, and stand upright inlong lines, exposing their glistening white breasts to thesunlight, they are said to look like an array
Animal life in the sea and on the land . SWIMMING-BIRDS. !>G9 at their sides and covered with short scale-like feathers,are entirely useless for flying, but they answer very wellin swimming and in scrambling upon the rocks. 16. Penguins live only in the Southern Hemisphere,while their distant cousins, the auks and guillemots, havetheir home in the North. They spend most of the time inthe water, and are often found at a great distance fromland. When they come on shore, and stand upright inlong lines, exposing their glistening white breasts to thesunlight, they are said to look like an array of Fig. 179.—Pelicans. 17. The Pelicans.—We must not forget the pelicans,too, those awkward, ungainly birds that look almost tooheavy to fly. But they are not very heavy, after all, fortheir bones contain a great many air-sacs, and their largeheads are nearly all bill. The curious bag that hangs un-derneath is only a tough, flabby skin, which makes a con-venient pouch for the pelican to scoop up fish with, and 270 ANIMAL LIFE IN THE SEA AND ON THE LAND. carry them off to the shore to eaten at leisure. Peli-cans are numerous on our Florida coasts, but they areso shy that you will not find it easy to get a good look atthem. On reaching one of the narrow strips of sandy isl-ands that skirt the shore, you will scarcely have caught aglimpse of the pelicans standing on the beach before thereis a whirring of broad wings and they are gone. Youmay not see them in the air, you may not see them onthe water, but after a while you will find that somehowor other they have reached another sand-
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectzoology, bookyear1887
