National Expenditure on the Maintenance of Gulls. 65 



herrings annually Parliament enacts a law to preserve these 

 seabirds. 



In the good old times there was, I believe, a reward of so much 

 each for wolves' heads, and there are now no wolves in these 

 countries. We could hardly hope to extirpate these wolves of the 

 sea, but if the State were to offer id. per head, thereby saving 

 ;£i2 worth of herring for each id. expended, their numbers might 

 at least be reduced. The shooting of seabirds at -|d each would 

 be a profitable industry, since when crowded in a play a dozen or 

 so might fall to one shot, but even a penny would not be thrown 

 away in purchasing 12,000 herrings. 



As to the distribution of the reward, I would suggest that the 

 coastguards have a good deal of spare time on their hands. 



Finally, it might not be amiss to add that, as I have been 

 credibly informed, some of these seabirds were quite good eating. 



People to whom I had given some hint of the above propositions 

 told me I was a heartless wretch to propose the destruction of 

 the graceful and beautiful seagull. I quite appreciate his grace 

 and beauty, just as I appreciate the glistening gracefulness of the 

 snake or the striped beauty of the tiger, but there were excellent 

 reasons of another kind why I do not encourage those animals 

 on my premises or try to preserve them, as Parliament preserves 

 the gulls about the domain over which it rules. 



Professor Gregg Wilson cordially agreed with Mr. Brown that 

 it was far better to destroy the enemies of the food fishes than to 

 limit man in his working ; far better to kill a hundred gannets 

 than to starve a few fishermen's families. But it was a very 

 complicated question. If the herrings were allowed to grow 

 unchecked the sea would not be able to contain them, and though 

 he would prefer that the herrings should be eaten by useful fishes 

 rather than gulls, still the gulls did not do so much damage as 

 might appear at first sight. The fuller study of fisheries we had, 

 he thought, the better. 



Mr. Wm. Gray said the author of the paper had overlooked one 



