These Clumsy,
Loggerheaded Ducks Make Such A Noise And Splashing, That The
Effect Is Exceedingly Curious.
Thus we find in South America three birds which use their
wings for other purposes besides flight; the penguins as fins,
the steamer as paddles, and the ostrich as sails:
And the
Apteryz 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,
made many observations on the lower marine animals, [11] but
they are of little general interest. I will mention only one
class of facts, relating to certain zoophytes in the more highly
organized division of that class. Several genera (Flustra,
Eschara, Cellaria, Crisia, and others) agree in having singular
moveable organs (like those of Flustra avicularia, found
in the European seas) attached to their cells. The organ, in
the greater number of cases, very closely resembles the head
of a vulture; but the lower mandible can be opened much
wider than in a real bird's beak. The head itself possessed
considerable powers of movement, by means of a short neck.
In one zoophyte the head itself was fixed, but the lower jaw
free: in another it was replaced by a triangular hood, with
beautifully-fitted trap-door, which evidently answered to the
lower mandible. In the greater number of species, each cell
was provided with one head, but in others each cell had two.
The young cells at the end of the branches of these corallines
contain quite immature polypi, yet the vulture-head
attached to them, though small, are in every respect perfect
When the polypus was removed by a needle from any of the
cells, these organs did not appear in the least affected. When
one of the vulture-like heads was cut off from the cell, the
lower mandible retained its power of opening and closing.
Perhaps the most singular part of their structure is, that
when there were more than two rows of cells on a branch,
the central cells were furnished with these appendages, of
only one-fourth the size of the outside ones. Their movements
varied according to the species; but in some I never
saw the least motion; while others, with the lower mandible
generally wide open, oscillated backwards and forwards at
the rate of about five seconds each turn, others moved rapidly
and by starts. When touched with a needle, the beak
generally seized the point so firmly, that the whole branch
might be shaken.
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