of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



271 



Eobert M*Connell, fish-buyer, representing the fishermen in Girvan — 



Believes that the birds at Ailsa Craig do more harm than a close season 

 would do good. The gannets are protected in a way which is injurious to 

 herring. The gannets have increased very much since the passing of the Sea 

 Birds' Act. There are more than 10,000 ganuets in Ailsa Craig, and they will 

 eat 30 herrings each a day. 



After a careful consideration of the above, and other evidence of a 

 similar nature, the Commissioners in their Report of 1878 on the Herring 

 Fisheries of Scotland, wrote as follows : — 



The destruction of herrings by gannets is enormous. It is estimated that on 

 Ailsa Craig alone there are 10,000 gannets. Assuming that each bird only 

 takes 6 herrings a day, the gannets on Ailsa Craig alone must consume 60,000 

 herrings a day, 1,800,800 herrings a month, or 21,600,000 herrings a year. On 

 the assumption that there are 50 gannets in the rest of Scotland for every one 

 on Ailsa Craig, the Scotch gannets must consume more than 1,110,000,000 

 herrings a year, or 37 per cent, more herrings than all the Scotch fishermen 

 catch in their nets. 



The Commissioners accordingly recommend that — 



The ' Sea Birds' Preservation Act,' protecting gannets and other predaceous 

 birds, which cause a vast annual destruction of herrings, should be repealed in 

 so far as it applies to Scotland. 



The answer to this recommendation has been the ' Wild Birds Protec- 

 ' tion Act,' which shelters a variety of predaceous and fish-eating birds, 

 which prey upon herrings the food of the poor, and upon salmon fry and 

 smolts, so that at present these birds are encouraged and protected at the 

 expense of the great fishing industries of the country. So recently as 

 January 1886, Mr Anderson of Edinburgh, who has had 50 years' experi- 

 ence as a lessee of salmon fishings, chiefly on the Forth, writes me as 

 follows about the 'Wild Birds Protection Act': — 



As to birds, there are a large number that feed on the ova all autumn, and 

 continue all winter, both in the rivers and burns. Then again, whenever the 

 fry starts, they keep on the fords for months. The common duck is most 

 deadly and seemingly privileged by the water-bailiffs. It never stops. In 

 one duck I found 37 young salmon fry, and in another 25. So both had a 

 good breakfast. In a water-hen I found 40 ova, and in another 10 fry ; and 

 in a gull 27 ova, and in another 11 young fry. Fry have been found in a 

 great list of other birds, such as lapwing, turnstone, crane, heron, egret, and 

 every kind of duck and gull.* 



Localities in Skye suitable for Mussel and Oyster Culture. 



While engaged in inspecting the salmon rivers in Skye and the sea-lochs 

 into which they flow, my own observations convinced me, and my atten- 

 tion was directed to the fact by persons well acquainted with the localities, 

 that these sea-lochs, especially at their heads, afford excellent opportuni- 

 ties for mussel and oyster culture; while farther inquiry shewed me 



* The late Mr Robert Buist, for many years superintendent of the Stormontfield 

 Ponds and of the Tay Salmon Fisheries, in a pamphlet published in 1866, entitled 

 The Stormontfield Piscicultural Experiments, gives the following graphic account 

 of the damage done to the salmon fry at Stormontfield by fish- eating birds : — ' As a 

 ' specimen of the voracity of these gulls, 1 may mention that the keeper, having shot 



* one of them, took out of its maw upwards of 50 of our young fish. This year (1866) 

 ' a long-legged heron was seen stalking about among the fry and gobbling them up. 



* The keeper got out his gun and brought him down on the rising. On dying he 

 ' vomited upwards of 50 of our fry. What must the young fish in the river suffer by 



* such depredators flying about in hundreds, and picking them up to feed their own 



* young ones at that season?' 



