HISTORICAL PREFACE xxxix. 



Lucas, who has left a full account of what he saw. The 

 latter says : " After the extermination of the Great Auk, 

 the fishermen and eggers seem to have done their best to 

 extirpate the remaining denizens of this isolated spot, and 

 it may well be that the Gannets were as effectually anni- 

 hilated as the unfortunate Garefowl." (" The Auk," 

 1888, p. 135.) Neither did they fare much better on 

 Bona venture {see p. 308). 



But for Professor Newton a similar destruction might 

 have overtaken the Gannets in Scotland, as a sequel to 

 the injudicious report issued in 1878, by the Scottish 

 Herring-fishery Commissioners. The conclusions of the 

 Commissioners have been dealt with elsewhere (pp. 6-11), 

 but the Report might have done incalculable harm. As it 

 happened a letter which Newton addressed to " The Times " 

 newspaper, saved the situation. This letter which was 

 afterwards reprinted by the Close -Time Committee, with 

 the signature of their acting secretary Mr. Dresser, had 

 sufficient weight with our legislators to save the country 

 the committal of an act of great folly, and the Gannets 

 on our shores were saved. 



I hope they may never again have need of such advocacy, 

 nevertheless the question of whether Sea-birds lessen the 

 supply of fish which man needs for his own consumption 

 will come up from time to time, and there is but one vahd 

 answer to it. The answer is that herrings, mackerel, wliiting, 

 etc., are innumerable ; moreover their fecundity is almost 

 immeasurable : in a word, there are and probably always 

 wiU be fish enough for man and the birds too. In 1881, 

 Professor Huxley wrote : " I do not beheve that all the 



