National Expenditure on the Maintenance of Gulls. 67 



were left unchecked they would multiply till the sea would not 

 contain them, and that the quantity of fry destroyed by birds was 

 exaggerated. The Hon. Secretary of the Society for the Protection 

 of Birds, London, stated also that the cries of the gulls warned 

 the fishermen of hidden rocks and shoals, and quotes some lines 

 in illustration of this idea. It is a pretty poetic fancy, but if 

 the fisherman fled from every collection of screaming birds, he 

 would have a busy time. 



It is possible that before the era of lighthouses and steam fog- 

 horns the cries of seabirds may have been a feeble substitute on 

 cliffs on which they were known to breed. 



The weakness of these arguments indicates the scarcity of real 

 support for the other side. The amount of scavenging is probably 

 relatively unimportant. 



The true objection is doubtless of a sentimental kind, partly 

 based on a feeling that the destruction of seabirds would involve 

 open cruelty. A correspondent of Truth points out that this 

 could be obviated by collecting the eggs for consumption as human 

 food. 



The author of that trite and obvious statement about unchecked 

 herrings might have chosen a more prolific species, since according 

 to Buckland, the herring has, weight for weight, only one-third the 

 number of eggs of the average of other food fishes, or taking 

 individual fishes, the turbot has 300 times as many. At present 

 navigation is not impeded by any approach to the "stiffening 

 of the sea " by either herrings or turbot. 



On the question of exaggeration it is possible that the number 

 of plays per mile may have been overestimated. On the other hand 

 I have not included the fry consumed by the grampus which 

 swallows the whole ball of fry at one gulp, a feat which he can 

 only accomplish after the divers have collected the fry into a ball. 

 Indeed the divers are the chief culprits since they not only 

 consume but also collect for both gulls and grampus, and if a 

 compromise must be made, let us sacrifice them and keep the 

 gulls, if the sentimentalists insist. The question as to whether 

 fish assist in this rounding up of the fry is a difficult one. I have 

 never observed that they do. 



In addition there are the depredations of the gannet and the 

 cormorant which devour mature fish. The former will even take 

 the herrings out of the nets as these are being hauled and the 

 fishermen complain, not so much of what they eat, but of what 

 they shake out and lose. 



