SEA-BIRD NUMBERS AND MAN 6l 



the total west Atlantic common guillemot population is at least 40,000, 

 of which there are about 7,700 in Quebec Labrador (R. A.Johnson, 1940), 

 c. 10,000 on Anticosti Island (H. F. Lewis, 1941c.), and perhaps 500 on 

 Bonaventure Island in Quebec and 700 on the Bird Rocks in the 

 Magdalen Islands (A. C. Bent, 19 19). 



Brunnich's guillemot, c. 2 million in Greenland (Salomonsen, 1951). 



Black guillemot, c.250 in Maine in 1948 (Palmer); 3 in England in 1940 

 (Cumberland; Blezard and others, 1943). 



Atlantic puffin, world population 1952, not less than 7,612,500, of which 

 2,500,000 each Iceland, Faeroes; 2,000,000 Brit. Is. (J.F. thinks this an 

 under-estimate) ; 62,500 France, Channel Is. (R.M.L., 1953). 



Though this list includes some very small numbers of sea-birds 

 breeding in some countries and lands desukorily, or at the very edge 

 of their range, there have been some big censuses; and of five North 

 Atlantic sea-birds, Tristan great shearwater, cahow, American white 

 peUcan, gannet and puffin, we have estimates of the world population. 



We must again remind readers that the figures do not refer to 

 birds (unless this is particularly pointed out) ; but to occupied nests 

 or breeding 'pairs.' 



Not many of the censuses made so far are of the species with 

 very large populations. Indeed, if we were to judge solely from com- 

 pleted censuses, we might come to the conclusion that the populations 

 of sea-birds were not high. In fact, they are often extremely high. 

 "The Fulmar Petrel lays but one tgg,'' wrote Darwin in The Origin 

 of Species, "yet it is believed to be the most numerous bird in the world." 

 We now know (Fisher, 1952) that, while there may be over two 

 million, there are under ten million fulmars in the world, and that, 

 far from being the most numerous bird, the fulmar is less numerous 

 than many sea-birds, and even some land-birds. One of us has already 

 suggested (Fisher, 1940) that "the most abundant bird in the world 

 is certainly a sea-bird, and probably \Vilson's petrel," and nothing 

 discovered in the last ten years has encouraged him to change that 

 view. Nevertheless, many species of sea-birds are astonishingly abund- 

 ant, and quite a number of North Atlantic species, if not vastly 

 numerous in the Atlantic proper, certainly darken the sky round their 

 arctic breeding-haunts just as Wilson's petrels darken some antarctic 

 skies. The miles of cliffs round Bear Island (especially at its south end) 

 harbour millions (an unknown number of millions) of Brlinnich's 

 and common guillemots. Some of the buttresses rise fourteen hundred 



