18 



" That conclusion No. 13 seems to have been arrived at from exaggerated or 

 incorrect information, as will appear from the following considerations : — The 

 number of gannets on Ailsa is estimated (Report, p. xi.) at 10,000, and a yearly 

 consumption of 21,000,000 herrings is assigned to them ; while the Commissioners 

 assume that tliere are ' 50 gannets in the rest of Scotland for every one on Ailsa,' 

 and on that assumption declare that the total destruction of herrings by Scottish 

 gannets is more than 1,110,000,000 per annum. This is evidently a miscalcula- 

 tion, for, on the premises, this last number should be 1,101,000,000 — a difference 

 of more than 8,000,000. 



" But, more than this, supposing the figures at the outset are right, it appears 

 to the Close Time Committee that the succeeding assumption of the Commis- 

 sioners must be altogether wrong ; at any rate there is no evidence adduced in 

 its support, and some that is contradictory of it. 



" The number of breeding-places of the gannet in the Scottish seas has long 

 been known to be five only, as, indeed, is admitted by one of the Commissioners 

 (Appendix No. 2, p. 171) ; and the evidence of Cajjtain M'Donald, which is 

 quoted in a note to the same passage, while estimating the Ailsa gannets at 

 12,000 in 1869 (not 1859, as printed), puts the whole number of Scottish gannets 

 at 324,000, instead of 510,000, which there would be at the rate of 5l» in the rest 

 of Scotland for one on Ailsa, according to the Commissioners' assumption. 



" Moreover, 50,000 of these 324,000 birds, or nearly one-sixth, are admitted by 

 this same Commissioner to be ' of great value to the inhabitants ' of St Kilda ; 

 and, indeed, they are of far greater value to them than any number of herrings, 

 since it is perfectly well known that tlie people of St Kilda could hardly live 

 without their birds ; therefore this 50,000 must be omitted from any estimate 

 of detriment. Deducting, then, 50,000 from Captain M'Donald's 324,000, we 

 have 274,000, and these, at the Commissioners' estimate, would consume 

 600,000,000 herrings, instead of the 1,110,000,000 alleged by the Report, and, 

 therefore, nearly 200,000,000 fewer than the Commissioners' estimate of the 

 annual take of the Scottish fisheries (800,000,000) — 25 per cent, less, instead of 

 37 per cent. more. " 



But the Britisli Association Committee furtlier shewed that, not 

 to exaggerate the case, assuming the birds to frequent the waters 

 seven months instead of twelve months in the year, this woukl 

 make only 350,350,000 herring consumed, as against eleven hundred 

 and ten millions as estimated by the Commissioners, being a less 

 consumption by nearly 700,000,000, or much less than one-third. 

 This opinion . was forwarded by the British Association to the 

 Home Secretary, when it was duly acknowledged, but never 

 disputed, and the Act was amended, but not repealed. In a 

 recent publication, " The Sea," we read — " It has been computed, so 

 fecund is the herring, that, assuming the Britisli waters to contain sixty 

 millions of female herrings, each depositing the moderate estimate of 

 20,000, it follows that the total number of eggs which, but for natural 

 and artificial checks, would come to maturity is twelve hundred millions 

 of millions — an expression which is easy to put on paper, but which the 

 mind can no more comprehend than it can grasp the idea of eternity : 

 enough that these countless hordes, were they to do so, if compressed by 

 five hundreds into foot cubes, would buUd a wail round the earth 200 

 feet broad and 100 feet high." The inference is, from such astounding 

 figures, that man's destructiveness, or tliat of birds eitlier, can do but 

 little harm. All fish, it is true, are not so prolific as the herring, but 



