CORMORANTS AND ANGLERS 



On the coastline of South Africa I have always been 

 struck with astonishment by two things — the teeming 

 plenty of the Cape fisheries and the incredible numbers 

 of cormorants. Here the superabundance of the one 

 is kept down by the apparently inordinate plenty of the 

 other. I have stood on the shore-line of Cape Colony 

 and watched the daily flight of tens of thousands of 

 Cape cormorants {Gracitlus Capensis) going to, or re- 

 turning from, their day's fishing. The numbers of 

 these birds seem perfectly incredible unless one has 

 actually witnessed their assembled legions. The late 

 C. J. Andersson, who observed them on the coast of 

 Great Namaqualand, says of them : *' At some seasons 

 of the year they may be counted not merely by tens 

 or even hundreds of thousands, but by millions ; their 

 numbers, in fact, exceed all computation ; for it is no 

 unusual thing to see a deep, unbroken line of these 

 birds winging their way for two or even three successive 

 hours to, or from, their feeding-grounds." At the Cape, 

 however, the cormorants are not the useless and ex- 

 pensive pests they are in England. They are, in fact, 

 next to the gannets and penguins, the greatest con- 

 tributors to those vast and fertile deposits of guano 

 which are to be found on so many rocks and islets from 

 the Cunene River to Table Bay. Under the Dutch 

 name duiker^ or diver, the Cape cormorants are familiar 

 objects at Cape Town. There are two or three species 

 of them. Besides being marvellously expert fishers 

 single-handed, these birds often act with great address 

 and acuteness in combination. A score of them will 

 form in line near the shore and range about until they 

 discover a shoal of small fish. Spreading out, they 

 drive the fish ashore and enjoy a rich banquet among 

 the rocks, sand, and salt water. Pelicans, those great 

 first cousins of the cormorant, pursue exactly the same 



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