bably another instance of the eccentric orthography of
the author and equivalent to 'gaivotas.'

In December the squadron reached the Angra de Sao Bras, which was either
Mossel Bay or another bay in close proximity to Mossel Bay. Here
penguins and seals were in great abundance. The author of the roteiro
calls the penguins 'sotelycairos,' which is more correctly written
'sotilicarios' by subsequent writers. The word is probably related to
the Spanish _sotil_ and the Latin _subtilis_, and may contain an
allusion to the supposed cunning of the penguins, which disappear by
diving when an enemy approaches.

The sotilicarios, says the chronicler, could not fly because there were
no quill-feathers in their wings; in size they were as large as drakes,
and their cry resembled the braying of an ass. Castanheda, Goes, and
Osorio also mention the sotilicario in their accounts of the first
voyage of Vasco da Gama, and compare its flipper to the wing of a bat--a
not wholly inept comparison, for the under-surface of the wings of
penguins is wholly devoid of feathery covering. Manuel de Mesquita
Perestrello, who visited the south coast of Africa in 1575, also
describes the Cape penguin. From a manuscript of his Roteiro in the
Oporto Library, one learns that the flippers of the sotilicario were
covered with minute feathers, as indeed they are on the upper surface
and that they dived after fish, upon which they fed, and on which they
fed their young, which were hatched in nests constructed of
fishbones.[2] There is nothing to cavil at in these statements, unless
it be that which asserts that the nests were constructed of fishbones,
for this is not in accordance with the observations of contemporary
naturalists, who tell us that the nests of the Cape Penguin (_Spheniscus
demersus_) are constructed of stones, shells, and debris.[3] It is,
therefore, probable that the fishbones which Perestrello saw were the
remains of repasts of seals.

Seals, says the roteiro, were in great number at the Angra de Sao Bras.
On one occasion the number was counted and was found to be three
thousand. Some were as large as bears and their roaring was as the
roaring of lions. Others, which were very small, bleated like kids.
These differences in size and in voice may be explained by differences
in the age and in the sex of the seals, for seals of different species
do not usually resort to the same locality. The seal which formerly
frequented the south coast