VI 
February 4, 5 > 19^3 
Danco - Couverville Island area. 
Here is an outstanding bird area - Gentoo and Chinstrap penguins in 
large rookeries. The former are centered on Couverville and thus negate 
this excellent building site as a place for a laboratory. There also 
happens to be a fine safe boat shelter on the east side of this island 
behind a natural breakwater upon which a small shelter could be erected. 
At high tide it would be isolated as water flows in over the in-shore 
end of this ridge. Atop its widest part is an abandoned whale boat. The 
whalers knew a good shelter when they saw one. There is quite a bit of 
snow-free rock here. Jack Crowell has walked over it. 
A short distance to the north of the Base "0" hut, on Danco Island, 
there is a large Gentoo colony, where birds were marching back and forth 
in deep "ruts" or tracks all the while we were ashore. The landing is 
poor here because along the shore the water is so very shallow for quite 
a distance out. 
Last but not least is the Chinstrap penguin rookery, or rather metro¬ 
polis, on Cape Spigot. It is a sight worth travelling to Antarctica to 
see. On the Argentine charts the name is Nunatak N egro. Its fore shore 
is crowded with Chinstraps, among whom a single Gentoo was spotted, but 
the bulk of the Chinstraps in this vast rookery had nests, or roosts if 
you will, all over the rock, steep slopes of Cape Spigot. Every snow- 
free patch of rock, and the greater part of this great and impressive 
Cape was crowded with penguins. Capt. McDonald estimated that this nuna- 
tak must have at least A 300,000 Chinstraps. What hikers and climbers 
