The Penguin of the Hollanders, or Magellanic Goose of Clusius.

The Birds of this kind, found in the Islands of the strait of Magellane, the Hol­landers from their fatness called Penguins. [I find in Mr. Terries Voyage to the East Indies mention made of this Bird. He describes it to be a great lazy bird, with a white Head, and coal-black body. Now seeing Penguin in the Welsh Tongue signi­fies a white head, I rather think the Bird was so called from its white head; though I confess that our Penguin hath not a white Head, but only some white about the Eyes.] This (saith Clusius) is a Sea-fowl of the Goose-kind, though unlike in its Bill. It lives in the Sea; is very fat, and of the bigness of a large Goose, for the old ones in this kind are found to weigh thirteen, fourteen, yea, sometimes sixteen pounds; the younger eight, ten, and twelve. The upper side of the body is covered with black feathers, the under side with white. The Neck (which in some is short and thick) hath as it were a ring or collar of white feathers. Their skin is thick like a Swines. They want Wings, but instead thereof they have two small skinny sins, hanging down by their sides like two little arms, covered on the upper side with short, narrow, stiff feathers, thick-set; on the under side with lesser and stiffer, and those white, wherewith in some places there are black ones intermixt; altogether unfit for flight, but such as by their help the birds swim swiftly. I understood that they abide for the most part in the water, and go to land only in breeding time, and for the most part lie three or four in one hole. They have a Bill bigger than a Ra­vens, but not so * Elated. *high; and a very short Tail; black, flat Feet, of the form of Geese­feet, but not so broad. They walk erect, with their heads on high, their fin-like Wings hanging down by their sides like arms, so that to them who see them afar off they appear like so many diminutive men or Pigmies. I find in the Diaries [or Jour­nals of that Voyage] that they feed only upon fish, yet is not their flesh of any un­grateful relish, nor doth it taste of fish. They dig deep holes in the shore like Cony­burroughs, making all the ground sometimes so hollow, that the Seamen walking over it would often sink up to the knees in those vaults. These perchance are those Geese, which Gomora saith are without feathers, never come out of the Sea, and instead of feathers are covered with long hair. Thus far Clusius, whose description agrees well enough to our Penguin; but his figure is false in that it is drawn with four toes in each foot.

Olaus Wormius* * Musei, lib. 3. cap. 19. treating of this bird, to Clusius his description adds of his own observation as followeth. This Bird was brought me from the Ferroyer Islands; I kept it alive for some months at my house. It was a young one, for it had not arrived to that bigness as to exceed a common Goose. It would swallow an entire Herring at once, and sometimes three successively before it was satisfied. The feathers on its back were so soft and even that they resembled black Velvet. Its Belly was of a pure white. Above the Eyes it had a round white spot, of the bigness of a Dollar, that you would have sworn it were a pair of Spectacles, (which Clusius observed not) nei­ther were its Wings of that figure he expresses; but a little broader, with a border of white.

Whether it hath or wants the back-toe neither Clusius nor Wormius in their de­scriptions make any mention. In Wormius his figure there are no back-toes drawn.

This Bird exceeding the rest of this kind in bigness justly challenges the first place among them.

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