Pygopodes (pigopodez)

pl. [NL.: see pygopod.] An order of swimming and diving birds, the rump-footed birds, having the legs inserted very far back, and buried in the common integument of the body nearly to the heel. Its limits have varied with different writers, but it is now generally considered to include the loons, grebes, and auks, and to exclude the penguins, which, though pygop odous, are otherwise very different in important respects. It then consists of the families Colymbidæ, Podicipedidæ, and Alcidæ. In consequence of the position of the legs, these birds can hardly walk, and when on land they a ume a more or le nearly upright attitude. See cuts under Alca, grebe, and loon. IMG:content-1367.jpg:[blocks in formation] tebræ, the clavicle not dilated and loop-shaped arteriosus) of the lower vertebrates. See trun proximally, and no postorbital or post frontal cus. squamosal arches. T. Gill, Smithsonian Report, 1885.