254 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



Bay is almost incredible. Many mornings I have been 

 attracted by the noise of thousands fishing some distance 

 off shore and have watched through a glass the dense, dark 

 mass as they passed a given point. Those half a mile or 

 more in the rear came flying forward in platoons and 

 alighted at the head of the broad line, making the water 

 turbulent with commotion while their numbers were being 

 constantly augmented by the arrival of stragglers from the 

 sides and rear. Mingled with the myriads of cormor- 

 ants, were often many California brown pelicans plunging 

 for fish, while above all hovered Heermann's gulls, robbing 

 at every oi^portunity. To all appearances, they were 

 following a great school of fish, astounding numbers of 

 which must be daily consumed by these voracious feeders. 



In one part of the bay was a low, sandy island formerly 

 covered by a light deposit of guano. This low land was the 

 common gathering place for many water birds and the prin- 

 cipal headquarters for cormorants, it having been, I was 

 told, a nesting place, but the collecting of guano had caused 

 them to desert it as a breeding resort. Passing close by 

 one day in a sail boat, the shore line and in places some 

 distance inland was seen to be actually black with closely 

 crowded cormorants. As the boat approached, they hurried 

 pell-mell into the water where a few dived and others took 

 flight. Those at a distance from the shore flew or ran 

 awkwardly to the water's edge. 



Cormorants were seen along the estero to San Jorge, and in 

 April, 1889, on the lagoons in lower Purisima canon, but 

 no nesting colonies were found except on Santa Margarita 

 Island. On that island they built upon mangrove bushes 

 bordering a small lagoon. This lagoon was about eighty 

 yards in width at the widest part, and five hundred yards 

 or less in length, extending in a general direction north and 

 south; upon the west side only were built nests of the 

 frigate pelican. 



Many of the cormorant's nests, in fact all of those first 



