213) 
THE PENGUINS AND THE SEALS OF THE 
ANGRA DE SAM BRAS. 
By James R. McCuymont. 
Prnauins were seen by the followers of Vasco da Gama in 
the Angra de Sam Bras on the south coast of Africa in the 
month of December, 1497, and in March, 1499. The anonymous 
author of a Roteiro of the first voyage of Vasco da Gama to 
India calls the birds ‘“‘ sotelycairos,” which word is now written 
**sotilicarios.”’ It is most probably derived from the Spanish 
* sotil,”’ subtle. 
The anonymous diarist tells us that the “ sotilicarios ” could 
not fly because they had no quill-feathers in their wings, that 
their cries resembled the braying of asses, and that they were 
as large as drakes.* Castanheda, Goes, and Osorio also mention 
the ‘‘ sotilicario,” and compare its wing to the wing of a Bat, 
and certainly, if the under surface of the wing was contemplated 
by these chroniclers, the comparison is not inapt. The last 
author whom I shall cite in connection with the ‘ sotilicario ”’ 
is Manuel de Mesquita Perestrello, who visited the South African 
coast in 1575. Professor Diogo Kopke quotes from a manuscript 
of his Roteiro in the Oporto Library to the effect that the wing- 
lets of the ‘‘ sotilicario’’ were covered with minute feathers, and 
that they dived after fish for food for themselves and for their 
young, which were hatched in nests constructed of the bones of 
the fish which were caught by them and by Seals.t 
There is nothing at which one can cavil in these statements 
unless it be at that which asserts that the nests were constructed 
of fish-bones, for this is not in accord with the observations of 
our contemporaries, who tell us that the nests of the Cape 
* *Roteiro da Viagem de Vasco da Gama em mccccxcvil,’ Segunda 
Edicao, Lisboa, 1861, pp. 14, 105. 
+ ‘ Roteiro,’ p. 142, 
