CORMORANTS. 239 



sundry Divers and Penguins, upright, motionless, and 

 solemn, they remind you of some magisterial assembly 

 in their sable robes, met together in grave and earnest 

 conclave. The Cormorant of the Gape lays its eggs in 

 holes, among the rocks, and the insatiate young ones, 

 although constantly gorged by their industrious fisher- 

 parents, yet are never satisfied, but with open beak, 

 eager eye, and out-stretched neck, they flap their formless 

 wings, and appear to be continually crying out " more, 

 more " ! 



The Pishing Cormorants of the Cape (Phalacrocorax 

 Africanus) usually unite to form large fishing parties. 

 They wind their way, in single file, starting from the 

 rocks along the shore, then swimming in the tranquil 

 waters of the bays, invariably led on by some experienced 

 and sagacious old admiral, they commence their fishing. 

 When their pilot spies a shoal of fish he suddenly makes 

 a vault out of the water, arching his neck, bending his 

 body, and drawing up his legs, when diving headlong 

 down, he is followed immediately by all his anxious ad- 

 herents, who perform their somersets in precisely the 

 same manner. The flotilla remains submerged some little 

 time, when it rises once more to the surface, and the 

 feathered fishers again renew their diving and plunging 

 piscatory evolutions. During short rambles in the vici- 

 nity of the Cape, many interesting forms may be ob- 

 tained by the naturalist. Among others collected by us 

 was the Agama liispida, a hideously ugly Lizard, sluggish 

 in its habits, and having a very broad body, covered 

 with spines, a very short tail, and, as customary more 

 or less with African animals, coloured with that tint 



