SPEAKING GENERALLY 21 



more use to the fisherman than the parade. More- 

 over, I returned from abroad ten years ago to 

 find the piers no longer peaceful, but thronged 

 with many kinds of humanity and giving for the 

 most part the poorest of sport. Now and again, 

 it must be admitted, one hears of better catches 

 on piers than in boats, but these are the exception. 

 Nevertheless, a cod weighing 18 Ibs. and a lobster 

 of 8 Ibs. are a proud record for one week, and these 

 go to the credit of Deal, while Clackton can show 

 a bass of over 14 Ibs., and the neighbouring resort 

 of Walton boasts of a pier-skate of 10 Ibs. Some- 

 times, too, piers yield most unexpected booty, 

 and those who angle from such structures must 

 expect anything from a crab to a victim of ship- 

 wreck. During the present summer, for instance, 

 a Brighton angler, fishing on one of the piers, 

 landed a garfish, a customer that we usually look 

 for with the mackerel shoals some miles from shore. 

 Among recent records of the jetty at Yarmouth, 

 from which sport is at times better than from the 

 longer pier, is a diving-bird, of a species apparently 

 unknown in the Tollhouse Museum, which took 

 a fisherman's hook and was duly brought to the 

 net. As another proof of the strange company 

 found in the neighbourhood of piers I may finally 

 mention a newt, which showed signs of having 

 been but recently swallowed by a whiting caught 

 off the pier at St. Leonards. A good deal of 





