Bird Notes and News 



31 



green thing in the valley. Starvation 

 stared Utah in the face. Then from the 

 lake advanced an army of Herring-Gulls, 

 coming up in white waves like an aerial 

 sea, and flung itself on the grasshoppers 

 and fed upon them for days until the plague 

 was annihilated and the crops were saved. 

 The tall granite shaft has two Gulls in gilt 

 bronze on its summit, and bronze plaques 

 tell the story. The incident is not un- 

 paralleled : but the gratitude is unique. 



The Aberdeenshire County Council, 

 having procured an Order entirely exempt- 

 ing every Gull from any protection whatever 

 under the W.B.P. Acts, are offering to 

 provide persons and ammunition for killing 

 all species, including the Kittiwake, which, 

 being a cliff-bird, does not come inland. 



SEA-BIRDS AND THE FISHERIES. 



The following letter from Mr. J. H. 

 Gurney, of Keswick Hall, Norfolk, appears 

 in the Ibis for April, 1914: — 



"The allusion made by Mr. W. P. 

 Pycraft to the injudicious action taken by 

 certain Fishery Boards (Ibis, 1914, p. 142), 

 who imagine that they are doing service by 

 advocating the slaughter of Cormorants and 

 Gannets, gives rise to a good deal of reflec- 

 tion. If the toll of fish which these birds 

 take is so serious, why are there still so 

 many fish in the sea? This seems a fair 

 argument for the non-advocates of slaughter, 

 especially as the European Gannet (Sula 

 bassana) is believed to be on the increase. 



"Will you permit me to communicate 

 the following returns — which indeed would 

 seem almost incredible were they not made 

 on the best authority — of the celebrated 

 Herring-fishery at Great Yarmouth in this 

 country, for 1913. They are taken from 

 the official figures, which the Harbour- 

 master is required to issue annually at each 

 of the great ports. The Herring season in 



the North Sea lasts approximately from 

 September to December, and last year 

 (1913) it ended, as far as Yarmouth 

 trawlers were concerned, on December 

 20th. In three months eight hundred and 

 twenty-four million, two hundred and thir- 

 teen thousand (824,213,000) herrings were 

 brought into the port of Great Yarmouth, 

 and nearly five hundred and thirty-seven 

 millions into the adjoining harbour of 

 Lowestoft. This takes no account of the 

 seventy-five millions which were brought 

 into Grimsby Docks, or of the multitudes 

 carried into Lerwick, Stornoway, and 

 various other places where the fishery is 

 carried on. Having regard to such figures 

 as these, who can question there being 

 enough fish in the sea for man and the 

 birds too ? 



" The fecundity which the herring, 

 mackerel, whiting, sprat, etc., display, is 

 something altogether astounding ; in fact, 

 the process of thinning out their numbers 

 which Gannets and other sea-birds perform, 

 should, as Mr. Pycraft has well remarked, 

 be regarded as beneficent rather than 

 otherwise. 



" Near the shore, and at or in the vicinity 

 of river-mouths, or near their breeding- 

 places, it is conceivable that Gannets and 

 other sea-birds may be inimical to the 

 interests of the fishermen. That much 

 may be admitted, but so long as such vast 

 numbers of fish continue to be netted in 

 British seas, it is impossible to argue that 

 Gannets, Cormorants, Shags, Guillemots 

 and Puffins affect the fish supply, except 

 locally, and accordingly it is wrong policy 

 altogether to destroy them. 



" If Gannets do harm, why is it that the 

 trawling grounds on the west Hebridean 

 coast, all of them within easy flight of St. 

 Kilda, are among the best that are known 

 to Scotch fishermen? St. Kilda and 

 adjacent islands are the largest metropolis 

 of Gannets and Puffins in the world, but it 

 is evident that the fecundity of herrings, 

 mackerel, haddock, coal-fish, etc., is more 

 than equal to the consumption by these 

 birds, helped as they are by Guillemots, 

 Razorbills, Shags, and Gulls, which breed 

 there in tens of thousands, as many visitors 

 to Borrera, Stack Armine, and Stack Lii 

 testify. 



J. H. Gurnet." 



