SEA-BIRD NUMBERS AND MAN IO9 



is about a tenth of what it was forty years ago. This would seem to 

 fit the figures from Ashydoo and the Bed o' Grass if, as seems reason- 

 able, the eggers took about half the eggs. 



Unfortunately precise figures of the number of auks killed by oiling 

 round the coast of Britain have never been collected. The pronounced 

 decrease of guillemots at Skomer in Pembrokeshire may be due to the 

 present extensive oil-pollution of the Bristol Channel. The Royal 

 Society for the Protection of Birds, just as this chapter was being written, 

 began to collect scientific information on a wide scale, and it is hoped 

 to have some concrete information as to the real extent of the menace 

 in a few years. The remedy — oil-separators on ship and at every 

 port used by oil-carrying ships — is obvious, and well-known, but 

 waits international agreement. 



