274 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



Protests were made against this projected slaughter, and 

 the following letter, which was printed in the Norwich 

 Mercury of November I4th, is worthy of a place here : 



" TERNS IN EAST SUFFOLK 



" At a meeting of the General Purposes Committee of the 

 East Suffolk County Council on Tuesday, the following 

 letter, addressed to Lord Rendlesham by Mr. G. P. Hope, 

 was read : ' As a landowner in East Suffolk, I trust I may 

 be allowed to protest against the assigned reason (as reported 

 in the London papers) for rescinding the order protecting 

 terns' eggs by the East Suffolk County Council. I know, as 

 a fact, the statement that there are 40,000 terns breeding 

 on the Suffolk coast is a gross exaggeration. The highest 

 estimate of terns on the Orford Beach is 2000. I put it less 

 than half that number. I spent three weeks during the 

 breeding season, chiefly up the river and on the North Weir, 

 watching terns, and photographing theirs and other nests. 

 At the end, near Shingle Street, there were about thirty nests, 

 and at the Lighthouse end there could not have been more 

 than three times that number. The last time I really looked 

 for nests was nineteen years ago, and I was struck by the 

 marked reduction in the number of nests and of birds, while 

 if you go another twenty years back the decrease is very 

 much more evident. The food of the terns consists of 

 shrimps and other small crustaceans, small fish, chiefly the 

 young of garfish or garbills, sand eels, young herrings, etc. ; 

 many of them will even take dragon flies and water beetles. 

 Possibly they may get a few smelts, but as the female smelt 

 is calculated to produce 36,000 young, the damage done is 

 not appreciable. I found five different kinds of terns 

 Sandwich, Arctic, common, and little tern, and saw two 

 white-winged black terns ; there were no black terns this 

 year. Some of these, including the majority of the little 

 terns, were feeding in the pools on the edge of the marshes, 

 where it is unlikely they would find smelts. When the terns 

 were more numerous there were many more smelts, and it is 

 just as sensible to say that the terns have affected the smelt 

 fishery, as to say that they have driven the lobsters from the 

 East Coast, or the mackerel from the Cornish Coast, because 

 they are scarce this year. Several people used to make a 

 good thing out of terns' eggs, taking them and selling them 

 for plovers' eggs, and one is driven to the conclusion that 

 there are other fish to fry than smelts. I trust it is not too 

 late for the County Council to reconsider their verdict, and to 

 allow the order to remain in force for another year, when 

 I hope it is possible something may be done to allow the 



