SEA-BIRD NUMBERS AND MAN 8l 



beyond the distance of about a hundred yards, thousands of gannets 

 wer^e yet sitting on their nests, and the air was filled with multitudes 

 of others." Enough were taken to supply bait for forty boats. The taking 

 of gannets for bait at the Bird Rocks went on until the end of the 

 century (in 1898 the nests reached their lowest number, probably 

 not more than 750), and in 1900 some gannets were shot on the nest 

 and a couple of pails of eggs were taken. From 1904 the birds were 

 protected by Government order, and in 19 19 the rocks were made a 

 Federal Bird Sanctuary. Owing to the persecution, erosion of the 

 gannets kept ahead of the erosion of the Bird Rocks, but during the 

 present century the breeding-places have gradually become full up. 

 Much reduced in area by erosion, they now hold fifteen hundred 

 nests or more. 



In the sixty years of steady decrease of the world population (1834- 

 94) the downward trend was primarily due to the fate of the colony 

 on Bird Rocks. In about 1864, however, a remarkable upward trend 

 got under way in south-west Britain. The first nests were found on 

 the Bull Rock in Co. Cork in 1856 and on Grassholm in Pembroke- 

 shire some time between 1820 and i860. The colony on the Little 

 Skellig in Kerry was down to about thirty nests in 1 880, at a time when 

 the trends in the other colonies was opposite, and after that date also 

 increased; the present situation (1949) is that the Little Skellig is 

 probably the second or third largest gannetry in the world, equal to 

 that at Eldey in Iceland with about twelve thousand nests, and 

 Grassholm is the fourth with eight or nine thousand. 



The world population began to recover not long after this trend 

 in the south-west had begun to make itself felt; and more recently 

 has been 'boosted' by the colonization of Shetland and an increase 

 in Iceland. The St. Lawrence colonies have also recovered and new 

 ones have started; in 1834 they held about 67 per cent, of the world 

 population, in 1894 about 8 per cent, and in 1939 about 16 per cent. 

 In 1864 the south-west Britain colonies held about 0.2 per cent, of 

 the world population; in 1894 about 6 per cent.; in 1939 about 

 19 per cent. The world's largest colony is now that at St. Kilda, which 

 has remained constant, as far as the records show, at fifteen to seventeen 

 thousand nests. We can reach our final conclusions on the numbers 

 of the gannet by bringing up-to-date the remarks of Fisher and Vevers 



(1943-44) ' 



The great decrease of the world's gannets in the nineteenth century 



was primarily due to the activities of man; and the twentieth- 



E 



