 Section 13 of Notes of an East Coast Naturalist by Arthur Henry Patterson. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Fish Notes, Part 3 Some eel notes. Our local eel-catchers, who, in the course of a year, secure many tons of eels, have some very crude ideas respecting its species, its movements and its reproduction. Several fancy distinctions are given to the two kinds known here, the broad-nosed and the sharp-nosed eel, the latter being known as the silver-bellied. This is by far the most numerously taken. The eel-catchers talk of glots, and brots, and other varieties that, after all, only differ in colouration, due undoubtedly to habitat, environment, food, or other local cause. With regard to the eel's reproduction, they assert seriously that it produces its young alive, backing up their statement by telling you that they often turn out the young when skinning them, and nothing in the world will convince them that they are parasitic worms. As to the eel's spawning, they will not believe it. In May, 1892, I was exhibiting a stuffed Lesser Rockle Whale in Norwich, and happening to pass a Fishmonger's, I saw him about to skin some large eels. They had been taken a few miles out of the city, and still retained the snoods and the hooks in their mouths and gullets. I offered the man some coppers, if he would save for me the entrails, which he did. Just those of one fine example, I detected what I considered to be a lobe of over, and on abrading it, and placing the jagged pieces under a lens, it was easy enough to distinguish the globules of spawn. I forwarded it to Mr. Sutherl, who placed some of it in spirit, and concurred in my opinion. There distinctly enough were the fragments of Ova, looking like so many minute bunches of yellowish grapes. That the eel develops cannibalistic traits, is evidenced by the fact of an eel weighing half a pound, and measuring about 18 inches in length, on being opened, disclosing two smaller brethren, each as thick as one's little finger. Six small shore crabs, included, had made a fairly good meal for the gluttonous fellow. How far wrong my conclusions may be, I know not, but I sincerely believe, although I have failed as yet to convince any of my naturalist friends, that many eels come up from the sea in spring. In May it is a constant practice with eel-babbers to drop downstream at even tide, when the ebb serves, and to fish at the bottom of it, and until near high water, within a very short distance of the harbour mouth. I have fished there myself, and as soon as the tide began to make up, have captured freely, goodly sized eels. It is well known that in late autumn, thousands upon thousands go down to the sea. That's these all perish, as some would have us believe, I think highly improbable. All that go down are by no means full grown or graved, and whence come those eels which in spring and summer swarm the coast? Surely, as likely from the depths of the ocean, as down the river? And by the same manner of deduction, are they not as likely to ascend the rivers as smelts or lampurns, or any other species? American Rose Perch On the 29th of April, 1894, a small but most beautifully coloured American Rose Perch, Scorpina Dactyloptera, was taken in a shrimp net, and brought to me by Pintail Thomas, a worn out Brayden punt gunner. Its length was five and three-quarter inches. Bringing it to Mr. Sutherl, I received from him the following interesting letter. I duly received, Scorpina, and a very interesting little chap it is. I will take it down to the museum. Day states generally that the species is an inhabitant of the northern ocean, uncommon in Greenland, occurs on the south-west coast of Spitsbergen, frequently captured by the cod fishes of the Faroe Islands, not uncommon off Norway, and extends as far south along the American coast as New York. As a British fish, it appears to have been first recorded by pennant, has been met with several times in Scotland, and in January 1867, near Hartlepool, also in 1851 in Swansea Bay. It has also occurred several times in Ireland. Day states that its food consists of crustacea and small flat fishes, and that it is usually captured at profound depths, and is believed usually to reside there, especially in rocky bays where the distance to the bottom is very great. The young are said to be born alive and to accompany their parents for a considerable time. It attains to a length of four feet. Just capture is just in time to add to the list which we have for the forthcoming part of the Naturalist Society's transactions. I might add that the above was the first recorded for Norfolk. Strange to say, I met with this species again under most curious circumstances, to be narrated hereafter. Up From the Sea Just as freshwater fishers occasionally make for the sea unintentionally, so sea fishers occasionally find themselves in waters equally foreign to them. Herring-sil or immature herrings come up the river in summer by myriads. Many never return, for they are stranded on the flats, snapped up by flounders, gulls and other enemies, and often pulled ashore in the small nets. From a net on the 2nd of September, 1894, I fished out a herring about eight inches in length. It had a peculiarly rounded tail, the lobes of the fin being curved instead of straight and V-shape-en. I put it in a pile of water, and for an hour or so amused myself at its expense, and finally turned it adrift again, apparently none the worse for my attentions or its imprisonment. It was reported in the Eastern Daily Press that a place twenty inches in length was hooked near Potterham, fifteen miles up the Bure, and in the heart of the Broadlands. I should incline to suspect it was a flounder, a species now and again captured in fresh waters. In July 1903, whilst fishing at Roxham Broad, an angler landed what he described in the same newspaper as, a sea flatfish of the place species, in all probability a flounder. I myself, while fishing at Redam, fully twelve miles from Yarmouth, have taken the shore crab, Cassinus minus, a small shark, a taupe, Galleus vulgaris, between five and six feet in length, altogether lost its bearings in September 1903, and coming three miles up river found itself in Braden. Either the sewerage discomforted him, or his more restricted swim hampered his movements. Anyway, it was soon observed that the fish was by no means at home. Being repeatedly to the surface, it was soon aspired by a waryman, who pushed off in a boat, armed only with a boat hook, in pursuit of it. After a good deal of racing and dodging to and fro, the man succeeded in fixing the hooked end of the pole in the shark's mouth. Yes it actively resented, but it was not long before its struggles grew less violent, when, by an adroit jerk, it was flung into the boat, where it capered and snapped in a further series of futile protestations. It is probable that the fish had come into the neighbourhood in pursuit of the herring-shells. On the fish I found several rather pretty specimens of fish lice, answering to the description of, Pandaris, by colour. On the prowl. It is a very common occurrence in summer to see flounders harrowing shrimps at the margins of the mudflats and at the edge of the beer. At such times, as the cross-stations playing in swarms are driven into the shallows by their pursuers, they fling themselves to a height of several inches out of the water. The flounder usually contriving to snap up at least one or two. Occasionally, by the impetus of its rush, the fish fairly strands itself, but hurriedly and noisily flaps itself in an undulating manner backwards. On the 8th of October, 1894, noticing a group of persons standing at the quayside, I joined them to see that a large flounder, heedless of their onlooking, was working up and down the piles, snapping at small shrimps which darted hurriedly out of its way. Some of the shrimps jumped quite out of the water, the flounder coming to the surface in chase of them. This went on for several minutes until a waryman, keen on the practical then the sentimental side of nature study, hurried up with a mop and attempted to capture the fish. It is needless to say it drew a line at treatment of this kind. It was undoubtedly a very hungry sturgeon that seized a fisherman's bait of sliced herring in December 1894, and was successfully hooked and landed, the hook having afterwards to be cut out of its mouth. It measured six and a half feet. This is the first sturgeon I have known to be thus legitimately caught in this neighborhood. It is not usual for the dory to be taken in the herring nets. One, however, was found entangled in the nets of a scotch boat off this coast. It measured two feet in length and weighed eight and a quarter pounds. Inside it were found seven herrings. Fish in ice In January 1895 some interesting correspondence was started in a Norfolk daily paper on the subject of fishers living in ice. The following letter set the ball rolling. Sir, would you mind informing me, by a footnote in your correspondence column, how long you think it possible for such a fish, as a dace, minnow, or perch, to live in the centre of a solid block of ice? I am anxious to get reliable information from someone who thoroughly understands the subject, and having heard so many opinions, coupled with innumerable arguments, must be my excuse for troubling you. Piscotor Amongst the replies to this was a note from Stickelback, who stated, I have on several occasions seen pike and other coarse fish frozen in the ice on our broads, but have never heard of their being found dead upon the breaking up of the frost, etc. My name was suggested for a reply, and I was obliged to admit that I had not much experience in the matter. I had a freshwater aquarium inadvertently left in the open, and before I was aware of it the water began to solidify above, around, and beneath. The fish, narrowed down to an exceedingly small swim, were evidently in a bad way, and to save them, as well as the aquarium, a warmer temperature was selected forthwith. I have no nails to come to the surface of a pond dead after the breaking up of a severe frost. Another correspondent wrote as follows. I had in a large glass bowl several goldfish and some Stickelbacks. The water in the bowl became almost a solid block of ice, and I noticed some of the goldfish were lying on their sides in what seemed to be a dying condition. After having soared a circular hole in the surface ice, I placed them in a pail of water with the chill taken off, and placed them in a temperature of about 45 or 50 degrees. In an hour or two, they seemed none the worse for the adventure. The remaining fish were, however, frozen later on in the ice, which became a solid block, breaking the glass globe to pieces. I placed the ice containing the fish, which were goldfish and Stickelbacks, in a vessel in the temperature of about 70 to 75 degrees, and when the ice had all thawed, I found every one floating on the top dead. I think this will show that when fish are frozen in a block of solid ice, they will not return to life again. EAC Acting on the Defensive. Several species of fish, when taken alive, show more or less fight. In May 1895, I was on the beach with some draw netters who hauled ashore several small guernards. On handling one or two, they astonished me by the quick and decisive way they struck, from right to left, and vice versa, with gill covers opened, making vicious stabs with the sharp points with which they are armed. Quite as designedly, and with even more show of intelligence, does the lesser weaver fling itself with its ugly dorsal fin distended obliquely at any object that is near it. I have teased this squirming little rebel with my walking stick as it lays swelling itself with apparent rage upon the sand, and been struck with the accuracy of its aim. Twice out of three times has it hit the stick with the venomous fin rays. Our fisherfolk, smelters, draw netters, and shrimpers, have a wholesome respect for this small rascal, who now and again succeeds in wounding the fingers of the weariest. They detest him too, and smash him on sight, the draw netters invariably grinding him to death in the sand or mud with their heavy heels. I have known instances of serious inflammation following a weaver's stab. Fisherfolk, when hurt, say that the pain only subsides with the falling of the tide. Whether the pike, when out of water, has his faculties keen enough to know that his bite can hurt, I cannot say. It is sufficient for me to recall the surprise, as well as pain given me by a five-pound jack, that had been some hours out of the water. I was handling him, and admiring his sharp teeth, when he suddenly snapped and shut his jaws on my finger, and it took some minutes before I could free it by means of a stick, with which, with my left hand, I'd leave it open his mouth. Sprats in Spawn To this day there are folk, even amongst fishers, who cling to the error that white-bait are a species of themselves, as they put it, and many still believe the Sprat to be the young of the herring. Side by side there will be seen more difference between two of the self-same length than between a shad and a herring of the same size. It is pointed out that Sprats are never caught in row. This is not to be wondered at, for the fishing for Sprats, that old bra and self-walled is usually over before the row has sufficiently developed to be easily distinguished. In December 1895 I put a rather large premium upon the first Sprat brought to me with over. On the fifth I had two brought to me, which I despatched to Mr. Suther, who wrote as follows. I have examined the ovary from the Sprats you sent me, and have little doubt that the reproductive organ contained very rudimentary over. They are very difficult to identify. In some the segregation of the yolk appeared evident when the tissue was hardened in proof spirit. Mr. Corder agrees with this. So I think you may take it that the Sprats in question were females and contained embryotic over. I do not think this is a rare occurrence, but in more advanced state I have never seen it. Still unsatisfied I remained on the alert, while one or two fisherfolk were as eager to assist me. To a most unusual catch of Sprats made in February I was indebted for satisfactory evidence. On the eighteenth some large and plump examples were on sale, and one or two were reserved for me. One fish was full of ripe ova, which, on pressing the abdomen, oozed out in distinct yellow globules the size of a pin's head. Indeed they looked very much like mustard seeds, and were proportionately larger and consequently not so numerous as those found in a herring. Bulldog variety of guernard A most extraordinary example of the variety known as Bulldog guernard, a safarine or latchet, was sent to me in May 1897. It's measured sixteen inches in length. The head had the appearance of having been stovin, the lower jaw protruding some way beyond the very puffy upper lip. This example was figured in the zoologist in July 1897. Large herring The largest herring I ever saw was a Norwegian example brought here in December 1900. Amongst quite a number of fifteen inch specimens shown to me, one half an inch longer was discovered. It weighed over fourteen ounces. Another fifteen inch fish was seven and a half inches in girth, and scaled fourteen and a half ounces. An interesting experiment A steam trawler from this port, named the Teal, in June 1899 went on a fishing trip to the Bay of Biscay. From the twenty-fourth this vessel landed at the fishwarf quite a miscellaneous assortment of interesting species of fish. The catchers, roughly enumerated, were as follow. Fifty dories, one hundred sea bream, three trunks of piper guernards, five hundred hake, besides small numbers of other rock-loving fishers. They made disappointing prices, and were speedily distributed amongst the various fishmongers, not for remunerative disposal, but as novelties for exhibition. Folks are slow to experiment on strange fishers, and prejudices are not easily overcome. I went round to several shops, and discovered among the sundries, hakes, a fourteen inch greater fork bed, and several rose perch, scorpina, dactyloptera. The steam trawler's experiment proved a losing one, the nets being sadly mauled by the rocky grounds fished over, and the small prices realized, far from offering further inducement to fish in the bay, completely banished the idea of further developments. Nor would fair catchers, under more favorable conditions, answer while the public remain prejudiced. In July of the same year, a trawler landed two boxes of rose perch, described as Norway Haddox, from the neighborhood of Heligoland. In small lots, these were disposed of as window attractions. Very few were afterwards sold for food. The majority eventually going into the refuse boxes under the counter. Double Brill In January 1900, I met with a double Brill, with the eye-notch, quite as well defined as in the double turbot, already referred to. Both sides were coloured. At the same time, I examined a smeared dab, pleuronectes microcephalus, normally shapen, but with both sides coloured. Other Deformities Just as the cod and some other round fishers are afflicted with deformities in the anterior portion of their bodies, so there are to be found malformations near the tile. On Brayden in August 1901, a smelt was netted, the posterior end of which suddenly turned up just above the anal fin, and having formed a kind of apex on the back, as suddenly descended after describing a rather pointed arch. The tile was also out of proportion, and forked very much like that of a herring. A haddock with a crooked back, exactly corresponding with the smelt, came to hand in March 1902, and in June 1902 I obtained the tail of a skate, which, in curves, zigzagged the whole of its length, describing three half-circles to the left, and the same number to the right. On one occasion, I obtained an eel zigzagged the whole of its length in a similar manner. Lassuing a Sturgeon Some years ago, three smelters were rowing up Brayden, when one of them, known as Snicker Lan, espied something floating upstream that struck him as being very much like a bush. Curiosity prompted him to stare for it, when, to his surprise, he discovered it to be a large sturgeon, to all appearances, asleep upon the surface. Cautiously the boat approached it, while Lan made a running noose. This he adroitly slipped over the tail of the fish, and pulled tight. At this it suddenly started and swam away as in terror, pulling the boat some yards along with it. To the smelters' annoyance the noose slipped, and the fish, for a while, continued its exercise. When it became quite again, however, it was once more lassoed. I took care it didn't slip this time, said Lan to me. The fish again dashed off, pulling the boat fully a hundred yards. By this time the men had shortened the rope considerably, and managed to get alongside the fish, when they belaboured its head with a wriggler, a kind of small iron crowbar, much in use at one time for disturbing worms by wriggling it in the turf. Having stunned their prize, they hailed another boat's crew, who came to their help, and assisted in getting the fish into their boat. It was sold in the fish market, and realised two pounds. It weighed eleven and a half stones, and measured seven feet six inches in length. I remember another instance, where a large sturgeon found itself in difficulties on a flat, from which the tide was ebbing. It managed to flounder and tumble into a drain or creek, at the entrance of which two braidiners planted their boat, and by means of nets stretched across and strengthened here and there by oars and bottom boards driven into the mud, kept it there till the tide had fallen, and they could, with ease, catch it. BRILL TURBOT In February 1897, my attention was called to a very strange fish, combining the characteristics of the brill and the turbot. It had the colour of the brill and the shape of the turbot, but with an entire absence of spiny processes. The fishmonger assured me he had seen similar freaks before. The example was about eight pounds in weight, and far too expensive to warrant my sending it away to an expert zoologist on spec. For a long time I kept on the alert for another, hoping all the time it might not be quite so large. And on the thirteenth of January 1902 I was fortunate to meet with another, which I sent to Mr. Sutherl, who forwarded it to Mr. Liddica at the Cromwell Road Natural History Museum. Mr. Sutherl afterwards wrote to me, You will see by the enclosed letter from Mr. Liddica that there is no doubt about the fish being a hybrid between the turbot and brill, and that they are glad of it at the British Museum. It was more use there than it would have been here in Norwich. Hermaphrodite Herring Through the courtesy of a local fish curer I was given the combined row and milk taken from a herring in January 1902. It was forwarded to Mr. Sutherl, who wrote an article upon it in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, March 1902, Series 7, Volume 9. He writes, Dr. Gunther remarks, in his study of fishes, that instances of so-called hermaphroditism have been observed in the codfish, some of the pleuronectoidy, and in the herring. But I believe that in the latter species such instances are very rare. It may therefore be worth recording an example recently sent me by Mr. Patterson of Yarmouth for examination. The example sent me, which had been removed from the fish, was of the usual form of the complete row. It was 130mm long. The anterior portion, consisting of the female organ, was 95mm in length and 30mm at its greatest depth. The male organ, or milk, occupied the posterior portion of the abdominal cavity, and was 35mm in length, tapering off sharply towards its termination. The female row was divided transversely into two distinct lobes, each contained in the usual investing membrane, but the male portion, or milk, was in a single mass, the division between the two organs being more or less vertical, but the former extending farthest to the rear along the dorsal portion. The lobes of the female organ thinned out towards their posterior outer margins, and a portion of the milk obtruded between them in the form of a wedge. Both bodies were fully matured and had a healthy appearance, but owing to their having been removed from the fish, which had been previously smoke-dried, a more minute examination was impossible. That the occurrence of such compound sexual organs in the herring is a very rare occurrence. It is more frequent in members of the Cobb family, seems probable. For I cannot learn of examples having been previously observed by the Yarmouth fish curers, through whose hands many millions of these fish pass annually, and who are very ready to mark any departure from the normal. Another hermaphroditic herring was recorded from Cly in December 1902. Having been, in all probability, taken off this coast, its record will not be able to place beside my own. A gentleman had cooked a bloater when he noticed the bisexual characteristics of the fish. The milk and the roe were situated in the usual cavity, terminating near the tail, and in this particular case the milk occupied three-fourths of the entire length, the remaining portion being perfectly formed roe. The roe and milk were separated by a thin tissue which formed a complete partition. The finder regretted the spoiling of the specimen by cooking. With the autumn fishing of 1903, a fish merchant informed me he had seen a cooked herring one breakfast time, which, on being opened, displayed a perfect coupling of the sexes, one low being of roe, the other milked. But the strangest instance of a hermaphroditic herring occurred on the first of December, when a person who had grilled a light-cured red discovered, on opening it, a strange admixture of roe and milk. It was considerably discoloured by smoke and heat, but distinctly exhibited the strangeness of its conformation. One lobe was at either end milked, the centre third being over bevelled to them. The other lobe was roe at the posterior half, the other being milked. Numbers of persons flocked to the fish salesman at whose wharf-office it was left for me to call round and sea. The owner intended to have it placed in spirits and preserved. End of Section 13, Section 14 of Notes of an East Coast Naturalist by Arthur Henry Paterson. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Miscellaneous Notes, Part 1. On Dogs Dogs do not like me, and I do not care for them. And the following Notes about them would not have been written but for the fact that the animals mentioned exhibited not only uncommon intelligence, but a thorough sportive disposition and a peculiar persistency in following up the bent of their genius. Lubbock in his Observations on the Fauna of Norfolk mentions the curly-coated retriever as the one species of dog very common here, though not peculiar to the county, the yarmouth water dog as they are generally termed in other parts of England. He then refers to a dog of this kind kept at a drainage mill on the Braden Marshes. In winter this dog would go off by itself and search the flint walls for wounded wildfowl. These, as is well known, always endeavour to creep into some nook or corner. When the wind blew from the northeast and ducks were numerous on Braden, he sometimes carried home eight or nine fowl of various kinds in a morning. The wildfowlers at that time, many years ago, wrote Lubbock, when referring to this particular incident, did not carry handguns, so many disabled birds would flutter away from them over the ice or in the dusk. Having left a bird at the mill, the dog would continue his search, picking up the trial where he had left off. He resented not only interference, but even intrusion, and seeing a man coming towards him would cross a wide ditch and go the longest way home. Another dog of a kindred species was kept by a shore-gunner, for whom it used to retrieve wounded or slaughtered fowl. This dog would, at certain times, more especially in periods of severe frost and strong winds, go hunting on his own account, and take home such fowl as he could find. From his master, who worked in one of the shipyards, he would sneak quietly away, and having discovered a duck or some wading bird, come back to the yard and lay it at his feet. No one else dared to touch the fowl. An aged gunner of my acquaintance, a man rather above the average intelligence of his class, used to shoot a great deal in the fifties and sixties, on the beach, sandhills and marshes with a shoulder gun. Billy had two or three dogs in his time that shared his sport with him. One, a white mongrel, was of great assistance at flighting. On those marshes, then known as the allotments, and now carefully drained, and in places cropped, the townsfolk used to turn hundreds of geese. This evening the goose-herds came to bring home their respective flocks, and had considerable difficulty in persuading them to leave this, to them, paradise of swamp. Billy's dog, on arrival, would materially help rounding up, hustling and driving road wards the laggard geese, after which he would place himself at his master's disposal in retrieving such fowl as might be shot. Another equally devoted mongrel would frequently sense small birds in the first patches on the common, and as they were flushed he would spring adroitly into the air and catch them in his mouth. He once ran down and caught a lark, carrying a tome in his mouth uninjured. A neighbour secured the bird, which was put in a cage, and lived for three or four years in captivity. No less than five different woodcocks did this dog, in his time, track down and capture as they sprang at his coming. He would also dive into the ditches, seize a small pike, and bring it out alive. On one occasion a friend was out shooting with Billy near the allotments, and had reached a field where turnips were growing. The friend had a mind for a turnip, being somewhat hungry after a long walk, but could not reach it, owing to a high bank and a ditch at the foot of it. Fetch one, said his master, and the dog sprang over. Fixing upon a good turnip, the dog rung and wrenched at it until he succeeded in pulling it up. Then back he came with it, dangling in his mouth. It happened that the farmer, who was some distance off, saw the dog's strange behaviour, and shortly after, on meeting Billy, he expressed surprise at the incident, more especially at the dog's vanishing over the bank with it. His very fond of turnips, said the dog's master. This still further bewildered the farmer, but on being told the actual circumstances he was greatly amused. A gunner had been shooting at the burside, having with him an intelligent retriever bitch. He had loaded his gun, and in a moment of absent-mindedness, left the powder flask on a stone, whereon the axis of a mill-wheel turned. When nearing home, he suddenly missed his flask, and happening to turn round, saw it in his dog's mouth. She, having picked it up, and followed closely at his heels, carrying it. Stoat and Weasel On the sandhills beyond Caster, where rabbits are bound, the stoat is not unknown. Nearer home, however, its appearance is an event. Only on two or three occasions have I met with one on the sandhills near the town. One poor, bewildered thing, hunting for an unwary snow-bunting, or anything else that might fall to his lot, was suddenly surprised by a friend of mine, who was quite as amazed himself. So much so indeed, that ere it occurred to him to use his gun, the animal had viciously jumped at his legs, and literally forced him into an impromptu jig, when, as if by magic, it disappeared, and hunt as he would, he could not discover the hole into which it must have vanished. The probability is that he closed with his heel, the burrow the stoat entered, the moment the animal had disappeared. Another stoat regularly patrolled the seashore, morning after morning, in search of food. Its footprints were visible leading to and from the sandhills, whilst here and there, broken fragments, and well-clean carapaces of the spider crab, hyas coactatus, were to be found. These crabs no doubt offered the animal a pleasing changed diet from the larks and pippets it must have been seeking before the dawn, and while they were yet napping in the tussocks of marrum grass. One morning, in August 1900, I was quietly drifting downstream on Braden, when I noticed some small animal suddenly plunge in from the walls, and commence swimming bravely into the broad stream of the channel, and doubtedly with the intention of seeing what he could do amongst the number of gulls gathered on the five-stake flat. Although not intending to get too close upon him, my boat drifted across his track, when the animal, a weasel, showed fight and endeavoured to climb into my punt, a proceeding I objected to, and I was obliged to gently tap him on the head with the blade of my oar. He sank quite a yard, squirming and protesting, but on rising to the surface, very wisely turned shorewards, and vigorously paddling, soon reached the bank, disappearing in the flintstone front at embankment. I had no desire to hurt him, but a desperate weasel in the confined quarters of a punt was by no means a desirable passenger. I have always regretted since that I did not wait to see how he fared amongst the powerful gulls that had tempted him to the adventure. An up-to-date bat. Since the introduction of powerful electric street lamps into the town, great numbers of various moths occasionally dance around them, baffled and bewildered by the glare. I have seen a wall opposite a lamp speckled with resting insects. Late on the night of the 21st of September 1903, I observed a small bat flittering around the lamps on the north key. It had evidently discovered that prey was to be found at a late hour around the lamps and intended to profit by knowledge of it. Foraging rats. The brown rat is by no means a scarce animal in Yarmouth, and no one has a good word to say for it. Its name being associated with much, that is evil. But there can be no doubt its presence among the flint-faced walls of Braden, where it lives on the carrion drifted there by wind and tide, is beneficial rather than not. It is simply astonishing how soon the carcass of a large gull, a dog, or even a pig, is reduced to an inoffensive skeleton, thus proving that rats are numerous there. The beast has become extremely cunning, and seldom shows itself until dusk, especially during the shooting season, when rat-potting chances are never rejected, even by those who are eager for no-bler game. Some of the older rats are woefully mangy, with unsightly tumours, bald patches and broken tails, testifying to hard knocks, fierce fights, and unholy living. Among the timbers of the gaust and breakwater, in the inaccessible fastnesses of mazes of timber, a number of rats have there abode, in summer varying their dietary with the crumbs and crusts thrown away by visitors. In autumn the herring refuse is never failing, and in winter the remnants of cross-stations, dead seabirds, and even moluska, bear witness to meals enjoyed in the long dark hours after nightfall. The footmarks of the rats may be discovered on the sands around, over which they have been prowling, a long streak here and there, bespeaking the occasional trailing of a tail. Quite half a mile away from the breakwater, I have seen these unmistakable tell-tail imprints along the tide-mark, and it is quite easy, after a little practice, to form a pretty correct idea of the hour long-tail was out on his travels by noting their distance from the last high-water mark. A Plague of Black Rats Although the existence of the black rat, Moose Ratus in Yarmouth was known to me in my earliest years, and a nod carcass was now and again thrown out from a malt house or a sail loft to be kicked about the streets. It was not until 1895 that I began seriously to make inquiries with regard to its numbers and behaviour in the older parts of the town, where it seemed to be more at home than in the newer portions. I found out that its presence in the malt houses during the drying season was by no means unknown or seldom noticed, whilst at other times when lack of food in these places drove it into warehouses and sail lofts, it became quite a nuisance, devouring any lumps of Russian tallow left about by the sail-sewers, and committing havoc amongst the grossest goods. At these times too, the rats made themselves at home in many of the cottages, one old lady having to remove because of the persistent way they occupied her pantry, and even came into the kitchen and made themselves at home. My inquiries and a price set upon each clean-killed specimen soon began to bear fruit, and day after day dead black rats were brought to me. Two examples, one an immature animal with a small white spot on the breast, a not unusual occurrence, were dispatched to Norwich and a couple of others to Edinburgh. Respecting the latter pair, Mr. W. Eagle-Clark wrote at once, March 5, 1896, The rats you send are most undoubtedly the old English species Moose Ratus, and their occurrence in abundance in Yarmouth is an interesting fact. Moose Ratus and Moose Alexandranus are considered to be racers of the same species. The black ratus, being the form found in temperate regions, and the brown Alexandranus, the tropical one. On the 16th of March I obtained two adult black rats, and saw lying dead, and too far gone for preservation, four rats of a bluish-gray colour below and of a rich brown above. Their long tails, large ears and small size, all going to prove that I had fallen in with the rarer Moose Alexandranus. From that date the black rat turned up day after day for a long period, indeed, until I had secured considerably over a hundred. On the 20th of March I obtained an adult female with white feet, also a small white spot on the chest and another on the head. Aged examples are adorned with a sprinkling of very long hairs, some of them intensely black, with a few quite white showing here and there. It was suggested to me that some of these had probably come ashore from grain ships, but as these usually lie on the west side of the river, and Southtown is quite apart from it, this theory was hardly feasible. The older part of Yarmouth, known as the Roe District, is a stronghold of the animal, and it was not until a year or so ago that it had crossed Regent Street and made its appearance in the northern part of the town. For a very long time Moose Alexandranus evaded me, that variety being curiously scarce, although quite able to hold its own with ratus, a higher premium certainly conduced to the capture of one or two. In the latter part of April 1896 a fleet of old fishing smacks that had been brought for some useless purpose from Grimsby were found to be infested with these rats, and as it was anticipated these vessels might be sent to sea, endeavors were made to exterminate them. For this purpose iron trays covered with red hot ashes and certain combustibles were placed in the holds and cabins of two or three vessels at a time. Above these fires was shot a considerable amount of pepper. The smokers immediately repaired to the decks and shut down every avenue of escape, plastering soft clay or mud over every crevice through which the fumes could escape. In the morning the hatches were taken off and the cabins ventilated. Here and there laid rats of all ages and sizes, dead from suffocation, in the bunks, in cupboards, everywhere, but the majority were found in the neighbourhood of the trays, as if the poor brutes, gathering to see what strange burnings these were, had been overcome as they discussed the situation. On the 12th of June I went down a fresh-opened smack with the smoker and saw quite a pitfall of dead rats, amongst them some fine examples of moose Alexandranus. I filled my handkerchief with them, but very few were preserved, for the baking process had made them so susceptible to decomposition that in an hour or two they were beyond manipulation. A young taxidermist managed to skin and cure eight of them and then desisted. I obtained two half-grown examples of moose Rattus alive in a wire trap and dispatched them to the zoological gardens. They were returned promptly the next day, with hardly a suggestion of thanks and with the information that they had already more than they wanted. I supplied several museums with specimens, including Cromwell Road. In July 1901 a tradesman living on the Quay was greatly annoyed by the misdoings of the black rats on his premises. He set a steel fall and found in it next day the tile of a victim that had managed to get away with the loss of that lengthy member. He good-humidly showed the tile to his next-door neighbour, demanding the owner of it, should he by chance secure it. And sure enough, two days after the trapping of the injured animal actually came about. And the rat, minus a tile, with the close-shawn stump almost perfectly healed, was taken to the first and rightful captor, with a message attached to it asking to have the doubly unfortunate quadruped retiled. Perciverus voles In August 1894 I went for a day's fishing on Lound Run, a few miles from Yarmouth. Whilst sitting in a boat I observed some small animal, and subsequently another. I was not sure that it was not a young otter that had come up out of the water at the margin of the opposite bank, dragging, I could not tell what, with it, and disappearing in the grass. For a time my curiosity abated, and I thought no more of the matter, even after walking later on to the spot and finding the broken valves of the swan mussel lying about. Believing at that time the water-vol, microtus amphibius, to be an entirely herbivorous animal, it did not occur to me that this must have been the little fellow at work. But a letter came to me on the 11th of April 1896 from the late Sir Edward Newton, in which he wrote, I see you mention in your paper that the water-vol is exclusively herbivorous. Now, on the 11th of April 1884, when with Mr Sutherl on the marshes near Ranworth, we observed on the banks of the dykes, quantities of the empty shelves of the large bivalve, and a daunter, I think it is, which had one valve almost destroyed, a portion only remaining attached to the other valve by the hinge, which was seldom damaged, and we came to the conclusion that this was the work of a water-vol, unless it was that of an otter, as there were no other animals which could have performed the operation so neatly, and so thought the vols found it more convenient to hold the closed shell the same way, as with one exception the same valve was always broken, and we must have seen at least fifty of the shells so treated. This communication revived my interest in Lound, and at the first convenient opportunity I went there again. On the 12th of September I examined quite a number of broken valves, lying upon one or two tiny islands just above the surface of the lake. Quite little heaps were to be seen, the shells broken open exactly as described, with smaller chips in profusion showing when nibbling had been done, and what was still more convincing, where the vols had been seated their excrement lay fresh and unmistakable. The dung of the vol is very unlike that of the otter, besides otters are not to be found in that neighbourhood. Shortly after this I received a communication from West Norfolk, wherein mention was made of the way water vols secured crayfish, and brought them out upon the bank to break and devour at their leisure. In the August of 1896 I was at my houseboat at Kendall Dyke in the Broad District. I had taken some small fish, and afterwards threw them upon the bank behind me. On the morning following my pescatorial feet I was surprised to find my roach half eaten, the upper sides being devoured to the backbone. There were unmistakable signs of some rodent having been there. I pegged down some more small roach in the evening, and by keeping a careful outlook discovered the depredators to be none other than water vols. In neither instance the vol has been proved to be guilty of any serious misdemeanor, and I shall be sorry indeed to know that my satisfactorily proving him to be at least pissivorious in his taste does him the slightest harm. He is a delightful, trim, unobtrusive little fellow, good company enough too, when one is in the solitudes of the silent highway. His merry gamboles with his kind are pleasing to watch, and the way he spends his idle moments and his busy hours is most interesting to observe. Albinos and varieties of this species are by no means common. Four white examples were killed, however, a few miles out of the town in 1892, and a cream-coloured one was noticed by a ditchside on the caster marshes a year or two after. The Mole The Mole is common enough everywhere, but few persons beyond its enemy, the Mole Catcher, pay much heed to its doings. In frosty weather it is a most reliable barometer, and exhibits its forecast of a coming break by the fresh mole heaps thrown up in its travels. In the summer of 1894 I caught one as it was shifting its quarters from one marsh to another. I seized the startled creature by the neck, but the lissom way in which it squirmed and endeavoured to seize my fingers, together with its shrill squeaks, induced me speedily to drop it into a handkerchief and thence into an empty pail, wherein it danced and capered in quite a frenzy of rage and fright. Intending to take it home and make a pet of it, I left it there all night with some rubbish for burrowing in, but found it dead in the morning. In 1895 I discovered several cream-coloured specimens in a field near Eichel. I have seen odd ones swimming voluntarily in the Bure. Citation Notes The porpoise, although claiming to be common off the Yarmouth Coast, is somewhat capricious in its visits. Odd examples and sometimes small companies are seen tumbling about in the roadstead and they disappear as unexpectedly as they come. In autumn the porpoise hangs around the herring shoals and now and again makes a great mistake by entangling itself in the herring nets. It is treated to a short shrift indeed, when hauled aboard the drifter, in order to save still further muddling and mauling of the nets. Two men who had been using a longshore net secured a porpoise which they brought into the town alive on a net-barrow for exhibition. Thinking to keep it fresh and lively they occasionally poured a pail of fresh water over it and tried their hardest to pour the water down its blowholes. They eventually succeeded in suffocating the hapless beast. During the year 1891 an unusual number of cetaceans visited the Norfolk Coast. My first record was a white-beaked dolphin, Delphinus albara stress, four feet eight inches in length that was washed up dead on the beach at Yarmouth on the 19th of April. I found the skull and fragments of another on the 14th of June. The skull measured 10 inches in length. A third example, seven feet four inches long, was discovered floating up the river on the 27th of August. This was secured by some boatmen who created a scandal by exhibiting it upon the marine parade on a wheelbarrow. The aroma in a day or two, not only drawing together all the flies in the neighborhood but attracting the attention of a large circle of interested spectators including the sanitary authorities whereby it so drawn within sight of its native element was considerably shortened. Dead porpoises were washed up on the beach on the 18th of July and the 1st and the 4th of November. A full grown female example of the lesser raw quail, Balanoptera rostrata, by losing its bearings among the numerous sand banks off the coast, eventually found its way into the harbour on the 8th of June 1891, where it was immediately attacked by a number of gallstone life boatmen and others, giving them such a chase as had never before taxed their agility and boatmanship. In one of its wildest dashes the frightened animal smashed its nose and then profusely bleeding it was driven between the dolphins, a kind of landing stage and the quayside piles, where it was attacked with iron creepers, boat hooks and other improvised weapons and secured also by ropes and made a complete and helpless prisoner. In about an hour it had succumbed to its injuries when it was towed to the lifeboat shed and hauled upon the stocks by means of the windlass. Here for a day or two it was exhibited to great numbers of townsfolk and afterwards given a public post-mortem dissection to the no small gain of those who had secured it. The skin was afterwards stuffed by a local taxidermist and taken for a short time on tour, spending the winter in the late Royal Westminster Aquarium and the following summer in a large building on the marine parade at Yarmouth, where the writer made a fair summer's earnings by exhibiting it to many hundreds of visitors. The gallstone wild was talked of far and near. The animal was 30 feet long, 18 feet in girth, span of tile, 8 feet 2 inches, length of pectoral fins, 4 feet 6 inches, length of jaws, 6 feet 6 inches. The baleen ran up to 15 inches in length in the longest plates. In September of the same year a considerable shoal of white beaked dolphins managed to get into a kind of cul-de-sac made by an accumulation of sand, since much altered. Where, the tide being low, they floundered about in an excited manner. They would have retraced their steps, but failing made considerable efforts until, splashing and blowing and thrashing with their tails, they at length surmounted the barrier and reached deep water, their subsequent lively prolecs indicating their delight at having escaped. A fine female white beaked dolphin was taken in the nets of the herring drifter, thankful, off this coast on the 13th of June, 1894. The beast, still alive, was bought at the fish-warf and placed on a barrow, on which it was driven into the town for exhibition. I met it in the street, still living, as it was being trundled to the purchasers' fish-house, its travels having been curtailed by police orders. With difficulty, and much against its will, I opened its mouth to admire the fine set of 80 conical, clean, pearly teeth. The animal measured 8 feet 6 inches in length. When taken into the house, it was stabbed with a knife, against which treatment it most stoutly resisted, flinging itself about in its agony and fright in a very desperate manner, the blood spurting all over the place, converting it into about the worst shambles I ever saw. Two men were knocked over by its struggles, and a large herring rack was smashed into pieces. On being opened, a fetal young one 3 feet 6 inches long was found. Its head was somewhat blunter than that of its parent. It weighed 4 and a half stones, and was almost fully matured. The estimated weight of the old one was about 600 weight. On the 14th of November of the same year, a lowerstoff drifter found entangled in its nets, a grandpa's 7 feet 5 inches in length. It was dragged from lowerstoff to Yarmouth by two quiet, well-behaved fishermen, who did some fairly good business by exhibiting it. Four days afterwards, I purchased a second example of this species, taken in a precisely similar manner by a Yarmouth boat. It was 2 inches shorter, but as like to it as the proverbial two peas. Mr. Sutherl, referring to these two examples in the transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalist Society, thought the fact of the two individuals being so nearly of the same age might seem to indicate that the grandpa's occasionally gives birth to two young ones. The postmortem of the second grandpa's may be worth repeating in Mr. Sutherl's words. The second example Mr. Patterson saw on the fish-war for Yarmouth on the 19th of November, and purchased it for the Norwich Museum, where it arrived on the 20th, when I had an opportunity of examining it. Owing to the skin being considerably abrased by rough usage, it was not in a condition to make a perfect specimen for the museum collection. I therefore telegraphed to Mr., now Doctor, SF Harmer at the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, and, at his request, sent it to that institution, after having made some careful measurements which are worth recording by way of comparison with those of the adult. The animal was a female and had probably never taken solid food, no trace of which, as I was informed by Mr. Harmer, was to be found in the stomach or intestines. The teeth had not been cut, but could be plainly felt in the upper jaw. Mr. Harmer tells me there were other indications of extreme juvenility, the fetal structures connected with the placenta being very large. The presumption is, therefore, that the animal was still sucking. The following is a description of this handsome cetacean. The dorsal surface glossy black, with the exception of a somewhat oval and sharply defined patch of white commencing in a point just above the eye and extending backward, to above and slightly beyond the posterior insertion of the pectoral limb. This patch of white, or rather cream yellow, probably owing to discoloration of the juvenile skin, was about three times the length of its deepest measurement. The ventral surface of the animal was of the same yellowish white, divided from the black colour of the upper parts by a sharply defined line, very graceful but difficult to describe, commencing at the point of the rostrum and passing along the upper border of the mouth, from which it was deflected to and under the flipper, which was black, to within a few inches of the ventral margin of the body, where it continued horizontally till about the centre of the dorsal fin, then taking a sudden bend upwards and backwards till it reached the centre of the vertical depth of the body, at a point immediately below the posterior border of the dorsal fin. It continued horizontally as far as midway between the posterior border of the dorsal fin and the insertion of the caudal appendage, when it suddenly turned upon itself, slanting downwards to within one third of the distance from the first deflection, and resumed the horizontal line until brought to a point by the curvature of the body, where it merged into the uniform black colour of the extremity. The undersurface of the caudal fin was also of the same yellowish white, which extended a short distance along the inferior caudal ridge, gradually, but still sharply defined, giving place to the black colour of the undersurface of the tapering extremity. A detailed table of minute measurements followed. On the 3rd of December 1900, a fine female Lesser Oracle was cast ashore dead on Caster Beach. It was discovered tumbling about in the surf, and a man waded into the water, and, having cut a hole in the jaw, secured it by a rope, and in this way, with help, hauled it farther northwards and secured it on the shore. There was some talk about a steam drifter having struck a whale out at sea, but no marks that I could see pointed to any impact with the sharp prowl of a fishing boat. In places, the skin was much abraded, in all probability, by its being toppled about amongst sandbanks. Its length was 30 feet, span of tail flukes 7.5 feet from point to point, pectoral flukes 4 feet in length. The smell was by no means pleasant. And after, both interesting and disgusting numerous visitors, the animal was hacked to pieces and buried in the sand. The innovation of the steam drifter, and the great numbers of herring fishers now at work, must have the effect of driving away these cetaceans and making them yearly scarcer in this neighborhood. End of section 14. Section 15 of Notes of an East Coast Naturalist by Arthur Henry Paterson This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Miscellaneous Notes Part 2 Toad Notes The list of East Coast Reptilia and Amphibia is not a large one, although comprising most of the very small array of British species. Nor does the race exhibit very marked traits of intelligence, so that an incident worthy of note is of extremely exceptional occurrence. A cream-coloured common toad, discovered in the neighborhood in 1891, was incarcerated in a large fern case, thus at once removing it from a sphere of usefulness and ending its adventures. Into this same case was introduced a viviparous lizard, which, after a few days' tenancy, was suddenly missing. On search being made, the end of its tile was seen protruding from the mouth of a toad, the unfortunate creature having been seized and swallowed by an amphibian by no means so long as itself. Lobsters Deformities and interesting accidents are far less frequent among lobsters than among crabs. At least, so my experience leads me to believe. In June 1895 I was fortunate in seeing a fairly large lobster that not a great while previously had lost a pincer claw by some accident. But a stump, a less than half-length piece, in fact, of the joint or section next to the carapace, remained, out of the centre of which sprang a minute but perfect new claw, very little more than a fifth of the length of the full-grown claw, remaining intact on the other side. Two pincer claws of lobsters came to hand in July 1901. One had the free kilo, half the normal length, and the other had the fixed end curved the wrong way, after the manner of the beak of the avicet. Two teeth-like processes, however, met the free kilo in the latter example, so that it was quite capable of strongly seizing any object. Crab notes In January and February there appears to be an inshoring of spider crabs. The species known as hyas coactatus is in this colder part of the year frequently thrown ashore by the waves, where, feebly struggling, it falls an easy prey to the hooded crows, or is flung among the flotsam at the tide mark, to be presently covered by drift sand. It is usually found in a soft state, the old jacket having been but recently cast. The frost very soon puts an end to its forceless squirming. On the first of October 1891 a very fine edible crab, measuring seven and a half inches across the carapace, and scaling twelve pounds, seized a muscle used as bait by an angler from one of the pears, who secured it, the animal having made its escape less possible by entangling the line about its claws. This, like occasional specimens taken in the shrimp nets, had been swept southwards from the chroma crab grounds by a strong tide. Myriads of shore crabs, carcinus minus, swarm on braid and mud flats. The small trawl nets used for procuring the eel pouts, vivipara splenis, that are used as baits for eel lines, come up with hundreds at a haul. The eel babbers are pestered by them, sometimes half a dozen gathering on and clinging to the worms upon their line. Anglers spend half their time rebaiting the hooks, so assiduously stripped by them every time the line is put overboard. Up the beer, even into the fresh waters they travel, everywhere annoying and constantly trying the tempers of those whose lines and nets they infest. Anglers for butts or flounders in the beer usually smash every one they haul in, having not the satisfaction of minimising the evil, but revenge on a particular individual who has tried, perhaps, to add injury to insult by endeavouring to hurt the fingers that peevishly he wrenched it off the baits. In the late autumn of 1898 a local angling club thought to turn the perseverance and numbers, as well as the greed of the pugnacious crabs, to account by offering prizes for the greatest weight taken on one line. One fellow, baiting with a string of fresh wightings, secured first prize with eleven and a quarter pounds. The second prize man fished with a sheep's head. Of the many thousands of shore crabs I have seen and examined, I only once met with a specimen with a deformed pincer claw, the upper or free keela, being only half the normal length and slightly upturned instead of rounded. Among the many deformities I have met with in Cancer Pagoras, the edible crab, may be mentioned the following. One made the 29th, 1897. The free keela on the larger pincer claw, when held point downwards, was strikingly suggestive of a Wellington boot, an extra point curving off at a right angle, with a small knob in the part corresponding with the instap. This specimen was figured in the zoologist. 2 April 30, 1898. A large claw of the edible crab brought me which had the fixed keela supplemented by a second placed at half a right angle to it, but instead of being only one pointed at the end, divided and became V shaped. 3 July 10, 1899. A large crab claw on this date was given me, the upper or free keela having three points to it, the lowest point shutting to the lower keela in the usual way. The three points made quite a W. I obtained one very similar to this in July 1901. 4 September the 19th, 1899. A large claw at a fishmonger's was discovered to have an extra keela growing from below the fixed point, and almost at right angles to it. This at the end looked very like a fleur-de-lis. It was dispatched to Cambridge. 5 A. The small claw of an edible crab had a V shaped point, very like a swallow's tail. 5 B. Another possessed two points, both free and working as if on a hinge. September the 17th, 1900. 6 April the 13th, 1901. The oddest malformation I have yet obtained was a small claw of the large edible crab. It possessed three distinct points, and had two separate joints. That is, a V shaped point that worked on its own hinge, and the single point on its own distinct pivot. 7 May the 27th, 1901. The pincer claw of a crab had on the free keela near its point a large knobbed process as large as a bean. When closed the claw had the appearance of grasping a big black bead. 8 September the 8th, 1903. A big claw from a large crab had a point growing out from near the centre of the last section, or palm, and at right angles to the fixed keela. Between them protruded a small point. After being exhibited at a zoological society's meeting, this specimen was handed over to the Natural History Museum. 9 On the same date, a second came to hand, having the fixed keela short and stumpy, yet very sharp at the end. Held sideways in the hand, the grotesque member looked for all the world, like the head and mandibles of a macaw. Only the free keela was not quite so much curved. The common shore-crab has a habit of hiding in hollows in the ronds that still bore a braiden in places when the tide has receded from the flats. Those unable to scuttle into hiding and left on the flats creep under the matted Zostero Marina and there remain until the tide returns. Others sink themselves into the soft ooze which finds its level immediately above them. Those in the hollows of the ronds, whole scooped out by the constant lave of the water, lie piled upon each other in heaps, sometimes hundreds thick. Here they remain, mutually agreed upon a toleration and good behaviour that far from characterise them when the flood-tide again sets them at liberty to scuttle in search of food or fight as the case may be. I first discovered these monster gatherings when, in cutting a rondedge vertically so as to face it with wood to form a kind of key-side for my houseboat, the spade slides through quite a peck of them. I have had many a bit of fun with the shore-crabs that haunt the corner of Braden where my houseboat is located. After meals the waste-pieces of fish, bloater skins and other raffle are thrown into the shallow water to the intense interest of these scavengers. Bones too large for some little fellow to drag away give occasion for a show of bullying at the claws of a larger relative. Free fights take place between evenly matched rivals and a great deal of threatening is indulged in. It is seldom anything serious happens, for the weaker one promptly shambles off to a safe or respectable distance, and the successful claimant either shuffles off with its prize to the shelter of a piece of sea-rack, or if its find be too large begins to pull off pieces which are hurriedly stuffed into its mouth. I was very much interested in July 1901 at seeing a jellyfish moving about in a shallow, trailing its tentacles behind it on the mud. A couple of crabs followed this up closely, seeming very much inclined to get a nip if possible, yet on the slightest change of movement they nervously bolted aside. I left them still maneuvering, like a cruiser harassed by a couple of dodging torpedo boats. Seaside scavengers In the sunnier days of summer, the sandhopper, Talitris locusta, is fairly common on the beach, spending much of its time amongst the debris cast up at the tide mark. One has but to turn over the refuse they are accumulated, to bring to light swarms of all sizes, which are soon surprisingly skipping away to other places of shelter, and disappearing again as if by magic. There is very little that is of an animal or a vegetable character that defies their powers of assimilation. Dead fish, birds, weeds, and even bits of writing paper, anything, in fact, that can be nibbled, is good enough for them. Young and old are as busy as bees. It may be that the young remain with their parents until they attain maturity, as suggested by a certain writer. But I am inclined to think that the gregarious habits of the species have more to do with the keeping together of great and small than any possible family ties or mutual understanding. The ringed plover and many another small shorebird are close students of the doings of the species and account for the demise of not a few. In the August of 1899, early one morning, I found a large place head washed up by the sea. A considerable company of small black flies, Actora Ostium, and another of sandhoppers, had taken possession and were immensely busy above and below. On kicking the head, the host or participants in the feast decamped, some of the sandhoppers tumbling out of the orifices in its below, and a few of the flies in amazement creeping from the mouth and gill cover above. There is little doubt in my mind that the flies discover their food by their sense of smell, whilst the others use both eyes and organs corresponding with the sense of smell. Having cleared the table of occupants, I picked up the fish's head and threw it a few yards farther along upon the same line of flotsam. The wind was blowing from the land, and the insect hunters were mostly engaged in their business between the tide-mark and the sea, and so were to the leeward of their breakfast. In less than three minutes, for I timed them, as many as ninety-seven insects had again bordered it, having worked by two's and three's and four's upwards, their progression being in leaps and runs. Not an insect flew. Now they would stop a moment like hounds making sure of the scent. Now they jumped a few inches, and then they ran a like distance. Two occasionally meeting, from slightly different angles, would fraternize in friendly buzz and gamble, and then hurry on together to the joint. Others were still coming up when I lifted the head again, and carried it several yards farther to Winwood. In a couple of minutes seventeen were into breakfast, some having travelled eight yards to get there, and once more I removed the head, placing it on this occasion nearer the water's edge. In three minutes but one insect had discovered it, and this was an individual which happened to be passing to leeward. The sandhoppers, however, do the lion's share of the eating, and astonish one by the thoroughness, as well as the alacrity, with which they devour every muscular fragment found upon the small fish, and the crabs that are thrown up and left upon the sands. Perfectly empty crab shells are found, and pogs, small flatfish, and others are very quickly reduced to a mere outside skin and inside skeleton. An aged prawn. The esops prawn, pandalus annulicornis, is extremely abundant off the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts. Hexivets are often taken daily by each shrimp boat belonging to the port. Of these craft some 70 or 80 are registered here. As is well known, these crustaceans shed their outside garment at stated intervals, but one I obtained in May 1901 had quite a cluster of young acorn barnacles, balanus balanoides growing upon its carapace. It is evident this jacket had not been recently acquired. Starfish mishap After a severe north-east gale in April 1902, I took a long walk northward of Yarmouth along the beach. I observed hundreds of five-rayed starfishers, Yurasta rubens, and eleven, twelve, and thirteen rayed stars, Solasta paposa, hundreds of empty shells of the horse muscle, Modolia modolius, and with them many sea mice. An interesting accident befell the cat of a friend with whom I had left a few of the sun-stars to look at. During the tea-hour the feline member of the family managed to devour the half of one. In half an hour's time she could not walk straight and groan piteously. After a collapse of some hour's duration she got upon her feet and could just manage to stagger along. Her jaws, which had become rigid, relaxed. The symptoms were altogether those of poisoning. Next day, however, she was herself again, and I received emphatic orders never to bring starfishers there again. Insect notes. In the summer of 1894 a very old house in one of the poorest and most crowded parts of the town was pulled down in order to prevent its coming down on its own initiative. For three or four years previous a large swarm of bees had taken up their quarters in a part of a chimney that was unused, and when the wreckers commenced to unroof the place they met with a rather hostile reception from the wandering insects. One man was stung on the eyelid whilst other stings were distributed in a most liberal manner. Numbers of the bees settled upon the naked rafters, while others buzzed threateningly around the de-spoilers' heads. A hole was made in the chimney and a bunch of rags stuffed into the aperture with sulfur and paraffin and set fire to. This had the effect of stupefying the bees still at home and adding an unwanted flavour to the honey accumulated. Huge pieces of the comb were pulled out and thrown to the assembled children of tender and mature ages below, for which a general scramble took place. Some brought plates and dishes in which to carry the comb away. I picked up a piece and knocking several bees off it found some of it exceedingly good, whilst a portion here and there was smoky flavoured. While sucking a bit of comb, one man received a sting on his finger, whilst another, heedless of fresh consignments descending from above, was struck on the back of his neck with a huge piece of soft, trickly comb that fairly poulticed him. Two buckets full of spoil in all was appropriated. The most curious thing witnessed was, when the chimney had been thrown down, how the survivors and the homecoming bees wheeled round and round, disconsolently and dumbfounded in the air where the chimney had been. For two or three summers previous, these bees, which had discovered the treasures spread upon the various sweet stalls in the marketplace, made themselves a great nuisance by smothering the sweets by the hundred all day long. The following paragraph appeared in the columns of a local paper early in July 1897. Hemsby, destruction of the strawberry crop. This parish has been met in the midst of the jubilee rejoicings with a plague of beetles, which has totally destroyed the strawberry crop. In some instances, where upwards of a tonne would have been taken, not one pound will be gathered. This means a loss of many pounds. This pest is nowhere to be seen during the daytime, but comes in thousands during the night. Can any reader find a remedy or a destruction for these pests? On the strength of this paragraph, I went to the village armed with a matchbox in order to make a few prisoners for future investigation. I went to one grower's place and looked at a half acre patch of the very dry upland sandy strawberry ground, on which were twenty-seven rows of plants. The year previous it had yielded between sixty and seventy stones of fruit. This year, scarcely a stone had been worth the gathering. Pushing my fingers through the soil, under and around the plants, I very soon had a handful of beetles, black thoraxed, dull brown-backed, and ruddier brown-legged little fellows, scarcely over half an inch in length, known to science as harpalous roofy cornice. There the brutes, said the indignant gardener, and certainly the brutes had been busy, whole clusters of strawberries, ripe and unripe, having been denuded of their seeds, and nibbled where the seeds came out. The soil, too, was riddled by them, and so numerous were they that a mole or two had been drilling high tunnels, undoubtedly in quest of them, for the soil was far too dry for worms. The previous year had been quite a grub season, so the occupier said, although they did no mischief. At Scrapby, Caster, Hemsby, Filby and Ormsby, where the soil was dry and light, the beetles had been exceedingly mischievous, whilst at Belton, and in other marshy districts, good crops were the usual thing. Various letters followed an article of mine published in the Eastern Daily Press. Reasons for the beetle's abundance were suggested, as well as remedies advocated. Two previous mild winters, with exceedingly little frost, would account for the preservation of many of the grubs, and my opinion is that the zeal which characterises the gardeners in that neighbourhood in the slaughter of grub-eating birds was a far greater evil. Then, too, the continuous cultivation of the strawberry upon the same fields must surely have been a mistake. I advocated, turning in the village children to stir up the soil and collect the beetles at a premium, and suggested that young fowls, more especially ducklings, should in future be penned in the vicinity in their season. Half a dozen of the beetles I carried home, I shut up in a glass pot, taking care that they should, for a few days at least, do penance. At the end of a week they were tame enough and fairly hungry. I tried them with freshly killed dipterous insects, but they refused to have anything to do with them. But on placing a strawberry amongst them they set, too, with a zest that showed they were not only hungry, but knew what suited their palate. They were busy all breakfast time, and in broad daylight, too, and were determined to remain by their treasure even when I twirled the strawberry round by the stalk between my fingers. In an hour the berry was completely riddled with holes. At Belton there are gardens where the soil is quite as sandy and as dry, and undoubtedly as suited to the habits of Harpalus. But the Natajak Toad is unusually numerous there. So much so, that ground vermin of the Harpalus kidney are rare enough, for the Toad has an excellent appetite. Fortunately for themselves, as well as the Toads, Belton folk let them all together alone, while knowing the useful purpose they serve. In May 1899, the larvae of the tipula, locally known as Daddy Longlegs, were discovered in the grass of the beach gardens. For some unaccountable reason they turned up in thousands each morning. Pecks of them, indeed, being seen in the few days of their sojourn above ground. They were brushed up and destroyed, but the grass was ruined. The sparrows took no notice of them. In the first week of September, the grassy banks of Braden walls on the north side, near my houseboat, simply teamed with crane flies. The insects produced from the larvae above mentioned. Each grass tuft looked like a ripe reed as they clung in clusters to it. As one brushed through the grass, they fell off in scores and hundreds. I do not think I shall exaggerate if I estimate their numbers in millions. Fortunately, a stiff breeze from the landward side of the bank blew them into the salt water of Braden, and in one day destroyed many of them. They floated in thousands on the surface of the water, and although Daddy is a rare hand at clearing himself from the unwanted element, struggling was in vain for the heavy wind very soon forced him back again to perish. End of section 15. End of Notes of an East Coast Naturalist by Arthur Henry Patterson