I9I4. GuRNKY. — Are Gannets Dedructive Birds ? 213 
two returns as nearly an average year, and allowing 
250 Herrings to the hundred-weight (which I am told is 
about right) we have a gross total of over thirteen hundred 
milhon (actually 1,300,325,000) Herrings taken in twelve 
months, not necessarily in Scottish waters, but all brought 
into Scottish ports. 
Be it remembered that this takes no account of the 
English and Irish fisheries, which are very extensive also. 
There is no port in the world into which so many Herrings 
are brought as Great Yarmouth, in Norfolk ; and Lowestoft 
is not far behind. In 1912 the Herrings landed at these 
two ports together numbered 1,361,000,000, and in 1913 
1,362,000,000, and many come to Grimsby also. In 1913 
the return for Grimsby was 75,487,000. Probably the 
number brought into all ports in the British Isles was close 
on three thousand milhon Herrings, in twelve months — a 
number too great to grasp ! 
Surely these prodigious numbers, which are really 
almost beyond human realization, are enough to convince 
the enemies of the Gannet that at present the supply of 
sea-fish remains inexhaustible, and that there are Herrings 
enough in the sea for everybody and everything. 
The more they are caught, the more do the remainder 
which escape the nets, multiply, especially the Herring. 
The truth is that but for Gannets, Cormoran':s, Gulls, 
Guillemots, Puffins, and Divers there would soon be a 
surfeit of fish. The part played by these sea-birds is just 
as important in the economy of nature's kingdom, as is 
that which birds -of -prey play in keeping down rats and 
mice, or small birds in suppressing the generation of myriads 
of insects. That Gannets and Cormorants may do some 
harm locally, that is to shore fishermen who never go far 
out, where they are numerous, is quite possible. None 
will deny that that may be the case, but that their depre- 
dations have the slightest effect on the stock of Herrings 
and Mackerel as a whole, is hard to believe, with such 
figures before us as those here quoted. 
Keswick Hall, Norwich, 
A 3 
