312 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



large, elongated, and arranged in columns. They give rise 

 to an apparently colloidal and a granular substance, though 

 whether these are successive stages of the same secretion 

 or two separate secretions is unknown. There is no mus- 

 cular arrangement for ejecting the venom." 



AN EEL CATASTROPHE 



In July, 1905, one of the strangest and most de- 

 structive fatalities to eels I have ever known occurred 

 to those in the waters of East Norfolk. The first intima- 

 tion I received of it was by a post card dated July iQth, 

 to the effect that 



" On Sunday three rods got never a bite all day (at St. 

 Olaves). But there are scores of dead eels floating in the 

 river, all in about the same stage of decomposition. The 

 ' salts ' generally get the blame. Eels didn't ought to mind 

 salt water. I only saw one other dead fish a roach. 



" P. E. R." 



I went to see what was the matter with the fishes, and at 

 first came to a wrong conclusion. Part of a letter I wrote to 

 the county paper read as follows : 



" SIR, . . . On a ramble round last Saturday from Reedham 

 and Haddiscoe to St. Olaves, I noticed several dead eels 

 floating in the river, and, without giving much thought to 

 the matter, concluded they had been pitched out of the eel- 

 babbers' stow-boxes ; it is their practice to place their 

 catches in floating trunks until a certain time, or when suffi- 

 cient numbers tempt them to return and sell their wares to 

 the wholesale buyers. In these * trunks ' there are usually 

 weak and dying eels to be found ; and as a dead eel is f a 

 fly in the ointment' and soon decomposes, over it goes. 

 Eels herein die from the results of pick-stabs, hook-swallow- 

 ing, and such-like. But the numbers reported by various 

 folks at different places, and the fact of the majority being 

 big eels some up to two pounds in weight, as our Yar- 

 mouth ferryman assures me must certainly point to some- 

 thing beyond ordinary accidents. Can it be that the recent 

 hot weather has affected them in some way or other? I 

 should be greatly interested in hearing whether this dead-eel 

 business has been more than local." 



