THE SALMON'S JOURNEY 393 



fishing was astonished to find, beside a certain quantity of 

 eels, no less than 5 cwt. of sea lampreys. On another 

 occasion an eel-catcher made a haul of a ton of river 

 lampreys. 



The plump, wary grey mullet, that very rarely takes a 

 hook in the East Anglian waters, used at one time to crowd 

 in shoals to the Norfolk Broads, but now seldom comes in. 

 Fifty years ago mullet-nets were in the hands of quite a 

 dozen lots of fishermen, and payable quantities were taken. 

 Of late years the sewage- polluted rivers have checked the 

 movements of this species. It remains yet to be really 

 discovered that the species has lessened in numbers, or that 

 some still obscure physical causes have deterred its incoming. 

 No fisherman, anyway, now fishes especially for it. 



It is not so with that tiny member of the Salmonida, 

 the smelt. In spring and autumn when on its way up river 

 to spawn, or when returning to the sea both leisurely 

 movements, considerably affected by the want or the abund- 

 ance of freshets there is still an army of men waiting to 

 intercept the migration. Strangely enough, although smelts 

 will travel to Norwich to spawn, a distance of over twenty 

 miles, very rarely has one been taken on the Broads, at an 

 equal distance, notwithstanding the fact that large catches 

 are made several miles up the river Bure. 



Flounders abound on the east coast, both on the Broads 

 and some way up the rivers. They enjoy brackish waters, 

 and even resort to reaches where the salt waters reach them 

 on the flood and the fresher waters on the ebb. The herons 

 from a neighbouring heronry capture bushels of small ones. 

 The larger flounders live well : the common sand-shrimp is 

 pursued with avidity, and on a still night one can hear the 

 flapping of these flat fishes in the shallow creeks as they 

 dash after the crustaceans or over the mud-flats. With these 



