CORMORANTS IN VAST NUMBERS 77 



a " skin " of it, became so tame and friendly 

 that I had not the heart to kill it. It subsequently 

 became a great pet and was brought safely home. 

 Young penguins are at first covered with a dark 

 greenish-brown down, and the feathers when they 

 begin to grow make their appearance first just 

 above the tail, the head and neck being the last 

 to be feathered. 



After spending some time with the penguins 

 we walked over to another part of the island where 

 the cormorants were nesting. Three, if not four, 

 species of cormorants nest on Dassen Island, but 

 of these the commonest is the Cape cormorant,* 

 which was breeding in vast numbers. A few pairs 

 of the darker coloured P. neglectus were nesting, 

 but they appeared to be rare. The Cape cor- 

 morant is the principal guano-producing bird on 

 the island. In appearance this bird somewhat 

 resembles our shag, but is smaller. They had 

 young at the time of our visit, and all of these were 

 ready to fly. The stench in this part of the island 

 was almost unbearable at first, but after a time 

 we became accustomed to it, and did not notice it. 



Several photographs were taken of the cor- 

 morants, but they were not so tame as the penguins, 

 and if one approached to within a few yards of the 

 colony, all the old birds and most of the young 

 took to flight with an outburst of screaming. 



Hovering over the colony were numbers of 



* Phalacrocorax capenais. 



