Natural liisiory in the E?igt?sh Counties. 15i 



The only rare insects I saw last year were a couple of mole-crickets ; and 

 some young friends of ours, who are entomologists, tell us that butterflies 

 were particularly scarce, doubtless from the coldness of the weather. The; 

 Cynthi« cardui (or painted lady butterfly), however, appeared last year. I 

 got a walking toad (iZana jRubeta) in the summer, which, I believe, is not 

 common here. We have not many reptiles ; more vipers than snakes. 



I wish I could give you a satisfactory account of the productions of our 

 sea, but, I believe, they have been very imperfectly explored. Our fisheries 

 are nearly restricted to those of the herring and mackerel, with crab and 

 lobster catching. There is a little line-fishing, but we seldom find any thing, 

 taken but skate, codlings, and a few codfish. I am convinced more might: 

 be done ; and, last summer, we did make the discovery that our soles were 

 abundant and excellent, though rather small. The tides run very strong 

 on this coast; and this, with the sudden changes of the weather, presents 

 an obstacle to the setting of nets; but I hope improvements may be made 

 in the construction of nets, which may extend the captures. A nice kind 

 of salmon-trout is sometimes taken in our mackerel nets, and we now and 

 then get a red gurnard or a red mullet. Of fishes which are not eaten, we 

 frequently meet with the sea-bream and the lump-fish ; we occasionally see 

 a pocket-fish (Lophius), and some large species of the shark race. We 

 heard of a shark, last April, which was called a bottle-nosed shark, nearly 

 8 ft. long, which ran upon the rocks at Cromer, with a porpoise in its 

 mouth; and, in the summer, we saw an angel-fish (*S'qualus iS'quatina). 

 We have very few shells, but some beautiful star-fish and Medus<2?. I 

 have seen the cuttle-fish from the length of an inch to its full size; and, 

 after the gale of last November, the beach was strewed with living sea-i 

 mice (Aphrodita aculeata), and with skates' eggs. These last I had before 

 supposed to be a vegetable production ; but, in each that I opened, I now 

 found a living long-tailed skate. They are of a dark colour, and have 

 four pointed corners, they are sometimes called fairy-purses. Seals are 

 occasionally, but rarely, taken asleep under the cliffs. In the autumn of 

 1828, we had one for some weeks, and he became rather tame; but he 

 could not bear the frost, and evidently pined for his own element. When- 

 ever he could get loose, he made off straight for the sea, which is at the 

 distance of nearly a mile ; and to the sea, at length, to his great delight, we 

 restored him. He was inclined to be sociable whilst with us ; for, when left 

 alone, he would creep into the kitchen for company r'^and he had a good 

 appetite ; for one night, after a hearty supper, he got out of his tub, and stole 

 and swallowed twenty-six large herrings. Whales are not unknown on our 

 coast. A small one got entangled on the rocks at Runton, on the 23d of 

 November, and was killed. I saw it when cut in ()ieces, and, therefore, I 

 cannot give so complete an account as I could desire ; but I understood it 

 was 24 ft. long. The whalebone fringe which lined the jaws was nearly white ; . 

 the jaws 2 ft. 7. in. long ; the extreme width of the tail, 3 ft. 11 in. I think it was 

 the Balaenoptera ^oops described in p. 233. of the British Naturalist. Its nose 

 was pointed, and it had the spout-holes in the middle of the head. Its colour 

 was nearly black on the back, and below it was white, and in folds ; the 

 blubber was about l^in. in thickness, and produced very fine oil. A steak 

 of the flesh was cooked, and tasted like tender beef. In March, 1822, 

 a much larger whale, also of the ^alae'na kind, was killed at Overstrand. You 

 may like to have the dimensions : — Length, 57 ft. ; breadth of tail, 13 ft.; 

 pectoral fin, 6 ft. 6 in. ; tongue in length, 9 ft. ; in breadth, 4 ft. Another 

 whale was observed spouting off Cromer in the autumn of that year. 



Having referred to the British Naturalist, I must advert to the just regret 

 of the author of that entertaining little work, at the extinction of the Urogal- 

 lus, or cock of the wood, in Britain ; and I would take this opportunity of 

 mentioning, that, five years ago, a gentleman of this neighbourhood imported^ 

 a pair of these birds from Sweden. They did well in confinement ; and"" 



