ON ESTABLISHING A "CLOSE TIME" FOE INDIGENOUS ANIMALS. 147 



Las diminished, or is likely to diminish, the general stock of herrings in 

 the sea ' — if correct, are absolutely contradicted by conclusion No. 13, 

 which recommends that ' The Sea-Birds Preservation Act, pi'otecting 

 gannets and other predaceous birds which cause a vast annual destruction 

 of herrings, should be repealed in so far as it applies to Scotland.' 



" II. That conclusion No. 1, stating that ' the Herring Fishery on the 

 coast of Scotland, as a whole, has increased and is increasing,' clearly 

 shows that there can be no necessity for the step recommended in conclu- 

 sion No. 13 as above cited. 



" III. That conclusion No. 13 seems to have been arrived at from ex- 

 aggerated or incorrect information, as will appear from the following con- 

 siderations : — The number of gannets on Ailsa is estimated (Report, 

 p. xi.) at 10,000, and a yearly consumption of 21,600,000 herrings is 

 assigned to them ; while the Commissioners assume that there 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 mis- 

 calculation ; for, on the premisses, 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 Commissioners 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 Captain 

 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 50 in the rest of Scotland for one on Ailsa, accord- 

 ing 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 inhabit- 

 ants ' 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 the 

 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 600,060,000 her- 

 rings 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. 



" Hitherto the supposition of the Report, that the gannets frequent the 

 Scottish seas all the year round, has been followed ; but the Close Time 

 Committee begs leave to observe that, as a matter of fact, these birds are 

 not there in force for more than half the year. 



" This, then, will require another abatement to be made. Not to exag- 

 gerate the case, the Committee assumes them to frequent these waters 

 seven months, or seven-twelfths of a year. This will make their annual 

 capture of herrings 350,350,000, instead of the more than 1,110,000,000 



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