302 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



large fish, and after watching it overcome and swallow it, I 

 shot the bird in order to see what had happened. I found 

 the fish was a garfish, 13 in. in length, the length of the bird 

 (minus feathers) being about 1 1 in. The fish was bitten 

 almost in two about the middle and doubled upon itself, 

 thus rendering the apparently impossible quite easy of 

 accomplishment. 



" I have seen a cormorant swallow a codling weighing 3 lb., 

 and one of these birds, which I kept for a few days alive, 

 would eat six large herrings a day, and was never satisfied. 

 He would fill himself until the last fish was left protruding 1 

 from his overflowing gullet, and in about four hours was 

 empty and hungry again. ... " W. J. C. (F.Z.S.) 



''January 13, 1906." 



From Folkestone followed another note : 



"DEAR SIRS,. . . A short while back Mr. Patterson 

 asked as to * what fish ate ' ; now my experience has shown 

 me that that depends mostly on the nature of the ground in 

 which one catches one's fish. During the whiting season, 

 and when sprats are also about, it is usual to find that the 

 'crop' of your whiting is glutted with Clupea sprattus; at other 

 times he appears to feed on anything which he can get hold 

 of that is alive, and makes the young ' britt,' which in the 

 spring of the year swim in our bay in myriads, pay a severe 

 penalty for having been born alive. We all know that Mr. 

 and Mrs. Whiting will also feed on the succulent lugworm. 

 . . . The pollack, the pike of the sea, is very much of the 

 same tastes excepting that he prefers 'rag' or 'madder' to 

 lugworm ; also a very young cuttlefish is very much to his 

 liking. Codfish appear to be very general also in their likes, 

 more catholic than either of the former, for I have found 

 whiting, small pouts, crabs, and other shellfish ' dedans.' . . . 

 On opening a 9-lb conger I discovered a recently-swallowed, 

 hard-shelled crab, at least four inches across his back. He had 

 so recently swallowed it that except for a turn in his lateral 

 formation no doubt prepared first by Mr. Conger to suit the 

 formation of his 'Little Mary' he was practically intact. 

 My reason for making a special point of this is that there 

 has been much discussion amongst the ' cognoscenti ' * up 

 above' as to the reason for the scarcity of shellfish [crus- 

 taceans ? ] round our south coast being caused by the captures 

 of large quantities of Congers, between this port of Folke- 

 stone and the French coast, in consequence of which the 

 Cuttlefish and Squid have increased in such numbers that 



1 Vide Notes of an East Coast Naturalist, pp. 74-6. 



