Penguin
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Penguin. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a name once applied to the great auk, but transferred to a somewhat similar bird found in the southern hemisphere , particularly in Patagonia and about the Cape of Good Hope . There are twenty species. The wings of the penguin are reduced to mere flippers used in diving only. The common penguin of Patagonia is about three feet in length and has a stout, ungainly body with a small head and pointed bill. Its upper parts and flippers are covered with black, scale-like feathers. Its under parts are white. The penguin is at home in the water. By means of its flippers it dives like a loon and pursues fish with all the speed of a cormorant, but it is exceedingly awkward on land. The legs are placed farther back on the body than those of a duck, so that it stands almost upright on land, resting partly on a stiff tail. The penguin is inconceivably more awkward than the duck. Its track on new fallen snow is like that made by a pair of snowshoes, only smaller, with a central furrow scraped by its tail. Penguins collect on rocky islands and lay their eggs in enormous colonies. Far from being shy, they come waddling about a camp in a whimpering, inquisitive way. A large specimen has been known to attain a weight of seventy-eight pounds. The emperor penguin of the Antarctic region breeds during the long Antarctic night. Travelers state that it holds one egg on the upper part of the foot and hatches it there. The young chick is kept off the ice and snow by sitting in the same place. A fold of skin and feathers drops down from the abdomen and forms a cozy shelter. See Auk One day we were pulling along at a good rate landing stores, when suddenly a heavy body shot out of the water, struck the seaman who was pulling stroke, and dropped with a thud into the bottom of the boat. The arrival was an Adelie penguin. It was hard to say who was the most astonished--the penguin, at the result of its leap on to what it had doubtless thought was a rock, or we, who so suddenly took on board this curious passenger. The sailors in the boat looked upon this incident as an omen of good luck. There is a tradition among seamen that the souls of old sailors, after death, occupy the bodies of penguins, as well as of albatrosses; this idea, however, does not prevent the mariners from making a hearty meal off the breasts of the penguins when opportunity offers. The penguins were round us in large numbers. We had not had any time to make observations of them, being so busily employed discharging the ship, but just at this particular time our attention was called to a couple of these birds which suddenly made a spring from the water and landed on their feet on the ice-edge, having cleared a vertical height of twelve feet. It seemed a marvelous jump for these small creatures to have made, and shows the rapidity with which they must move through the water to gain the impetus that enables them to clear a distance in vertical height four times as great as their own, and also how unerring must be their judgment in estimating the distance and height when performing this feat.--E. H. Shackleton, in The National Geographic Magazine.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a name first given to the great auk (Alca impennis), but now applied to any member of the family Sphæniscidæ. Penguins are aquatic birds confined to the high S. high S. hemispheres, where they congregate in latitudes of both large flock flocks. The body is generally elliptical; neck of moderate length; head small; bill moderately long, straight, compressed; tail short. They have no quills in their wings, which are as rigid as the flippers of a cetacean, and utterly useless for flight, though they move freely at the shoulder-joint, forming cludes ornamentations at the Rochester most efficient paddles, and are usually County Club, and in Randolph Hall, worked alternately with a rotatory mo- Cambridge, Mass. His illustrated works tion. They make no nests, and lay a and single egg, which is tended by both birds, and the female takes charge of the young for nearly 12 months. The emperor penguin is Aptenodytes patagonica, and the king penguin A. longirostris. Their molting is very peculiar. The flipperlike wings cast off short scale-like feathers; they flake off like the shedding of the skin of a serpent. In botany, the broad-leaved pineapple, Bromelia pinguin, of which penguin is a corruption. It is very common in Jamaica, where it is planted as a fence around pasture lands, on account of its prickly leaves. When stripped of their pulp, soaked in water, and beaten with a wooden mallet, they yield a fiber whence PENGUIN thread is made. The juice of the fruit in water makes a good cooling drink in fevers.