xl THE GANNET 



herring fleets taken together destroy 5 per cent, of the 

 total number of herrings in the sea in any year ..." 

 and in another place he says : "... there is not a 

 particle of evidence that anytliing man does [such as 

 destroying Sea-birds] has an appreciable influence on the 

 stock of herrings " (" Scientific Memoirs," IV., p. 553) ; and 

 here we have the dictum of a great authority. Allusion 

 has already been made to the prodigious number of 

 herrings caught in the North Sea between 1902 and 1907, 

 and there has been no abatement. In 1912 the number 

 landed at Yarmouth and Lowestoft beat all records, over 

 thirteen hundred and sixty- one million being brought into 

 these two ports alone. {See T. J. Wigg, "Zoologist," 

 1913, p. 72, and "The Fish Trades Gazette" of December 

 12th, 1912.) 



Besides the services already mentioned. Professor Newton 

 was at no small pains in helping to unearth the present 

 whereabouts of the documents relating to the Gannets 

 on Lundy Island, in the Bristol Channel. These have 

 been given in Chapter III., but as they are of pre-eminent 

 interest, it may not be out of place to say a few more words 

 about them before closing. These " Inquisitions " or 

 inventories as we should call them now, were ordered to 

 be made when the island escheated to the Crown in the 

 reign of Edward I,, and again when Herbert de Marisco 

 " recovered it " from de Wyllyngton. At that time the 

 island was evidently well cultivated : to say nothing 

 of the Gannets and other edible birds, there were upon 

 it twenty acres of arable land, besides five acres of good 

 meadow, and grazing for cattle. In time the " Inquisitions " 



