390 THE GANNET 



very large, no one can watch them fishing without being 

 satisfied of that, and if shot, four or five, or even six, fish 

 may perhaps be found in their capacious gullets. Yet it 

 IS no larger in proportion than the quantity required by the 

 Cormorant, Guillemot, Puffin, or Pelican (a large eater), 

 only their mode of fishing does not bring them so directly 

 under our notice. A Cormorant has been stated to require 

 ten pounds of fish daily to keep it.* Surely there are as 

 many fish in the sea as ever there were, and certainly it 

 does not look much like a decrease in our fish supply when 

 seventy-nine million herrings can be landed at one port on 

 a single day.f The part played by sea-birds in keeping down 

 fish is probably, did we but know it, just as important as 

 the part played by birds-of-prey in keeping down the 

 numbers of rats, and other prolific rodents, or that performed 

 by the Passeres and Picarice in keeping down insects. 

 Scientific writers are in agreement that man should not try 

 to upset the balance of Nature by shooting down sea-birds. 

 On this head see the opinions entertained by the late Pro- 

 fessor Newton J and Mr. W. P. Pycraft, the latter of whom 

 thinks that the " blundering efforts made to-day by certain 

 ill-informed would-be legislators to keep down fish-eating 



* "Field," Sept. 24th, 1910. 



t See p. 10. 



J "Dictionary of Birds," p. 303. 



