SUMMER HOURS ON BREYDON 121 



of certain species of semi-marine vegetation and the animal 

 life that swarmed among it. Flounders, too, came up the 

 then clearer, quieter, and more accessible river in great 

 numbers, spending much of their time in shrimp and mollusc 

 hunting, and growing fat on their well-fed prey and the 

 juicy " cabbage " (Ulva lactucd] they swarmed on. The tides 

 did not always leave the flats bare, and there was a greater 

 alternation of salt and fresh water, and of the latter a more 

 frequent abundance, which suited them. The local Brey- 

 doners possessed several nets, both draw-nets, especially 

 manufactured to catch the wily mullet, and stake-nets for 

 the flounders. To-day, on any wind from the south-west 

 round to south-east and a point or two beyond, either way, 

 some of the higher flats will remain dry for days, becoming 

 pale brown in colour, and white in patches with the salt left 

 by the evaporation of the moisture. These alterations 

 reduced netting to a very poor business indeed. I once 

 helped an old friend with his net, and for a tide we captured 

 two little flounders and more weeds than we wanted. 



" Butts," as we term flounders here, were, in my very early 

 days, caught in immense numbers, and mostly sold for crab- 

 bait. Only a few riverside folk troubled, in those palmy 

 days of the local trawling industry (now practically extinct), 

 to cook these luscious, firm-eating fishes. A " butt "-net was 

 a " trammel " measuring about seventy yards in length ; four 

 nets would be staked in line. The trammel, which was a 

 net about four or five feet deep, was made with a small, 

 loose, light-meshed net in the centre, with two coarse-meshed 

 nets affixed on either side, so that a fish, in dashing against 

 the obstruction, simply pushed the small net through a big 

 loop, and so bagged itself like a rabbit. The nets were 

 affixed at high water, when the flounders had scattered 

 themselves all over the flats to feed ; and they were inter- 

 cepted on their way back to the channels and drains when 

 the falling tide uncovered the flats. Then came the fisher- 

 man with his boat and "trunks" boxes perforated with 

 holes (like eel-trunks, but larger) and the struggling fishes 

 were soon liberated, only to be imprisoned again, until 

 sufficient were captured to be sent away. Carters drove 

 over from Cromer and Sheringham, and gave half a crown 

 per hundred, of six score to the hundred. Their days were 



