SEA-BIRD NUMBERS AND MAN 93 



hungry seamen of the early voyages 'o the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

 It is not, of course, inevitable that a resident human community 

 comes into harmonious balance with the sea-birds which he exploits; 

 but besides the places we have mentioned, it is likely that such is also 

 the case in West Greenland, and on Baffin and Bylot Islands, where 

 the Eskimo communities have a long fowling tradition. It is also 

 probable that in somcotropicah islands the native populations have 

 arrived at an harmonious predation of sea-birds. 



There are many accounts of the history of fowling, notably that 

 of H. A. MacPherson (1897). In Britain the two main fowling com- 

 munities have been the eggers or "dimmers" of the Flamborough 

 cliffs in Norfolk, who descend the precipices of Bempton and Speeton 

 on ropes to collect eggs, particularly those of guillemots, and the 

 now extinct community of St. Kilda, which continued its fowling 

 activities until it left the islands in 1930. 



The St. Kildans lived very largely on birds. From all the 

 accounts (and there are many) the average St. Kildan ate one bird 

 nearly every day throughout the year. The birds chiefly taken were 

 fulmars, gannets and puffins. In the century 1829- 1929, the St. 

 Kildans took an average of 115 fulmars a year per inhabitant (min. 

 100, max. 130). The greatest total annual catch reliably reported is 

 12,000 from the years 1829-43, when the human population averaged 

 about 102. Even in 1929, the year before the evacuation, when only 

 about 32 natives remained on the islands, 4,000 fulmars w^re taken. 

 Most were young, taken between 12 and 26 August when sitting, 

 fat, heavier (and more edible!) than their parents, on their cliff-ledges, 

 but some were adults. The St. Kildans also noosed adults in March, 

 and took a few eggs in mid- and late May. It seems likely that in most 

 years they consumed half the reproductive output of the entire St. 

 Kilda fulmar population. 



The gannet colony on Boreray, Stac Lee and Stac an Armin, the 

 great north rocks of St. Kilda, is the largest in the world. In 1939 

 nearly 17,000 and in 1949 about the same number of nests were 

 estimated to be occupied ; about a fifth of all the gannets in the North 

 Atlantic. Martin Martin certainly exaggerated the total crop of 

 gannets taken (22,600 in 1696, he said), and it w^as the careful N. 

 MacKenzie who showed that before 1829 never more than 5,000 

 young were taken, and never more than 2,000 from 1829 to 1843. 

 In 1 840 the crop was c. i ,600 young. But the crop was not only of young; 

 from their arrival on the cliffs the adult gannets were taken, and their 



