n6 ANIMAL LIFE UNDER WATER 



which is a photograph of the contents of a gull 

 after a miscellaneous meal : three starfish (five 

 inches across), three hermit and two shore crabs, 

 one sea anemone, five whelks, earthworms, and, 

 earlier in the day, a whiting, as shown by the 

 two otoliths mounted on a piece of black paper. 

 Everything is quite apparent in this illustration, 

 but in the alimentary tract of the bird the whole 

 is mixed up in a semi-digested odoriferous 

 mass, in which small otoliths may easily be 

 -missed. 



From the foregoing remarks it will be appre- 

 ciated that to estimate the amount of fish taken 

 by sea-birds it is necessary that the observer 

 should have considerable knowledge of fish life, 

 and even then, unless a liberal allowance is made 

 for the rapid digestion of gulls, the damage 

 done to our fisheries will be very much under- 

 estimated. N . 



In 1912 complaints were received by the 

 Essex and Suffolk Fishery Board concerning the 

 damage done by gulls to the fishing industry on 

 the Suffolk coast. A committee of inquiry was 

 formed, and during 1913-14 I examined the 

 contents of 54 divers, 575 gulls and 22 nestlings. 

 At first only birds obtained locally were 



