6 THE GANNET 



author is conscious that the figures now offered are not 

 very satisfactory, yet they rest on a basis of some sort, 

 which is not the case with the enormous numbers guessed 

 at with but Httle show of reason by some zealous writers 

 in the past. 



Destruction of Gannets. 



At one time Gannets would appear to have been subjected 

 to great persecution in America.* Moreover, on different 

 occasions they have stood in no small danger of a like perse- 

 cution in this country. This was the case in 1877, when 

 Messrs. Frank Buckland, Spencer Walpole, and Archibald 

 Young were appointed Commissioners to enquire into the 

 conditions of the Herring Fisheries of Scotland. Birds 

 naturally came under consideration as well as fish, as is 

 evident from the repeated references to them in the Com- 

 missioners' Report published the folloAving year,f in which, 

 though admitting that the herring fishery had increased and 

 was increasing, yet they recommended the repeal of the Sea- 

 Birds' Preservation Act protecting " Gannets, and other 

 predacious birds," so far as it applied to Scotland. The 

 consequences of this recommendation, proceeding as it did 



* See Audubon, "Orn.," IV., p. 224; "Auk," 1888, p. 129. 

 f "Report on the Herring Fisheries of Scotland" (London), 1878. 



