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SUPPLEMENTARY FISH-NOTES FROM YARMOUTH. 

 By Arthur H. Patterson. 



Sprats. — Since my last Annual Notes were published in 

 ' The Zoologist ' (1910, p. 451) one or two other interesting 

 occurrences have been noted. Sprats were late in their coming 

 to the Suffolk coast, owing probably to the unsettled, stormy 

 weather that prevailed in November ; but towards December 

 they made up for their delay by arriving in prodigious quanti- 

 ties. The Aldeburgh boats made enormous hauls on Wednesday, 

 December 7th, when nine trucks, containing some thousand 

 bushels (of from thirty to thirty-five tons), were sent off by the 

 Great Eastern Railway to London and provincial centres, 

 amongst them being three truck-loads for shipment to Germany. 

 I noticed a goodly quantity from day to day on Yarmouth fish- 

 wharf, in shallow boxes holding on an average three stone. 

 Between Pakefield and Southwold the bay was reported to me 

 on the 17th. as "swarming with Sprats." During one breezy 

 day one boat sank in the breakers with forty bushels of Sprats, 

 its rudder being lost and sails torn to ribbons. The fish have 

 been of excellent quality, and I noticed a marked absence of 

 the parasitic eye-sucker {Lerneonema monilaris), which is frequent 

 in some less turbulent seasons, nor have I seen the shoals infested 

 with Idotea as in some years. 



Herrings. — The Yarmouth Herring fishery wound up with a 

 catch, in round numbers, of some 34,800 lasts, as against 

 43,965 lasts in 1909, and 44,362 lasts in 1908. Two interesting 

 instances are worthy of record : — When the Herrings " fell off" 

 in the home waters, an enterprising owner sent a boat down into 

 French waters, where he made a rather surprising haul of fine 

 fish. A Lowestoft trawler, fishing in the vicinity of the light- 

 vessel * Galloper,' early in December, off the Essex end of the 

 Goodwins, captured a number of Herrings in his trawl. He 

 informed the master of a drifter of his ''take," who went there 



