i82nnqjWILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



" You've seen queer things here ? " I suggested. 



" Hev I!" emphasised "Snicker." "I've seen porpoises 

 tumblin' about here, and more 'an one seal. Then look at 

 that great sturgeon we got. 1 One day we was goin' past the 

 Dickey Works and I see suffin' floatin'. I know'd in a minnet 

 what it wor it war a dade body. We rowed up to it, and 

 seed a poor gal, with her face still red as if alive, and her hands 

 clinched athort her brist. ' Poor gal ! ' I said, lookin' at her, 

 with a bunch of reeds tangled in her hair and a yeller water- 

 lily clutched in her hand. ' Why, that's poor M ! ' I said ; 



and then we remembered it was her as was missin', but how 

 she cum up heer was a mystery. The feller as had got her 

 into trubbel done a guy [ran away], and her father turned 

 her out. Poor gal ! she was out of her trubbel now. ' Mates/ 

 I said, 'if we tow her down, -we shorn't git more 'an five bob, 

 and perhaps luse more 'an a day, not includin' the inquest. 

 Some one'll see her lower down, and we can't do her no 

 good.' So we rowed on, but heerd afterward as they fished 

 her out agin the lower Ferry at Gorleston. They brought 

 it in suicide," he added. 



" Murder ! " I said, " would have been nearer the mark." 



" You ain't far out," said Larn. " Thank 'ee that was a 

 good drop," he added, " but we must be agoin'. So long ! " 



" So long ! " said the others. 



MULLET-CATCHING 



Mulleting is now out of date on Breydon, for the nets 

 cannot be worked on the flats ; if they were there would be 

 no grey mullet to catch. Only odd fish now occasionally 

 come into the smelt-nets. The flats on which they loved to 

 prowl were seldom dry thirty and forty years ago. The 

 nets, with their big twelve-inch meals [meshes], on either side, 

 were staked on the flats at the bottom of the ebb, and the 

 fish in their travels " pocketed " themselves. Some nets 

 were two hundred yards in length. They were also staked 

 alongside the flats lengthways with the tide, and the mullet 

 would net themselves in going off the flat, endeavouring to 

 reach deeper water. In "drawing" for them great care had 



1 Vide Notes of an East Coast Natiiralist^ pp. 248-9. 



