APTENODYTES

(Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) A genus of diving web-footed birds, peculiar to the antarctic shores, having wings too short for flight, covered with short stiff feathers, resembling scales, and used as tins or paddles for swimming under water. The legs are short, thick, set far back, with four toes, all turned forwards, three of them long and webbed, the fourth very short. The bill is longer than the head, straight, and slightly curved at the tip: nostrils in the upper part of the bill, concealed in front by feathers. The Patagonian penguin is the representative of the genus. APTERANS. [s. 82]