Kast London, Cope Province. 81 



Cormorants. 



I cannot say that the Trek-Duiker (^Phalacrocorax capensii) 

 is upon our coast in numbers every year, but, as a rule, it 

 may be looked for during June to August in companies 

 ranging up to, say, 300, and those sometimes enter our tidal 

 rivers for a short distance. From the high banks one can 

 generally then have the birds well under observation, and be 

 sure to witness their strenuous work in feeding. Anglers 

 say the fish come in mostly with the flowing tide, and that 

 is why the Duikers choose, as they usually do, to appear in 

 the rivers when the latter are full. This seeming preference 

 may, however, be partly occasioned by less favourable con- 

 ditions for diving in the surf-belt during high water. For 

 nearly an hour I have watched over 100 of them feeding in 

 the Nahoon River close to East London ; they were very 

 busy, and approximately one-third of their number were 

 under the surface at a time. If one were to judge by the 

 number of silvery flashes he saw, how many fish they caught, 

 then I would say that the whole lot of them together did not 

 average more than a capture per five minutes ; but a good 

 many of them swam for a little with a brownish object in 

 their l)ills which they shifted about, and it may have been a 

 crab that had to be crunched before swallowing. 



When about to dive they raised themselves upon their 

 w-ebbed feet, then, arching their bodies, a vigorous kick sent 

 them below for about a minute. I was in such a position 

 that I could see that some went straight down into the deep 

 water, but most shot along just under the surface ; and occa- 

 sionally one would bob up at least 50 yards beyond where it 

 had disappeared. Oddly enough, these birds are very fond 

 of bathing ; many a tiu)e I have seen them splashing and 

 flapping the water with their wings so as to get themselves 

 well wetted, after which they go off to some stretch of sand 

 or flat rock to preen and titivate. 



The large White-breasted Cormorant, too, is fond of giving 

 itself a special washing, and may often be seen in groups of 

 six or eight during the summer months sitting on the beach- 

 rocks with heads erect and half-stretched wings in suppli- 



