Thus we find in South America three birds which use their wings for
other purposes besides flight; the penguin as fins, the steamer as
paddles, and the ostrich as sails: and the Apteryx of New Zealand,
as well as its gigantic extinct prototype the Deinornis, possess
only rudimentary representatives of wings. The steamer is able to
dive only to a very short distance. It feeds entirely on shell-fish
from the kelp and tidal rocks; hence the beak and head, for the
purpose of breaking them, are surprisingly heavy and strong: the
head is so strong that I have scarcely been able to fracture it
with my geological hammer; and all our sportsmen soon discovered
how tenacious these birds were of life. When in the evening pluming
themselves in a flock, they make the same odd mixture of sounds
which bull-frogs do within the tropics.
In Tierra del Fuego, as well as in the Falkland Islands, I made
many observations on the lower marine animals, but they are of
little general interest. (9/11. I was surprised to find, on
counting the eggs of a large white Doris (this sea-slug was three
and a half inches long), how extraordinarily numerous they were.
From two to five eggs (each three-thousandths of an inch in
diameter) were contained in spherical little case.
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