312 THE ZOOLOGIST, 



FISHES. 



Herring-fishing at Christiania — It would appear that Herrings at 

 times will eat almost any kind of animal refuse they can find, for while 

 staying at Christiania during the early part of this year I saw large 

 numbers caught on hooks baited with mussels, or even strips of the bodies 

 of their own companions. The harbour of Christiania is kept open all 

 winter by powerful ice-breakers, but the extreme head of the fjord called 

 " Frognerkilen," between the city and the peninsula of Bygdo, becomes 

 completely frozen over. As soon as the ice is safe — about the middle of 

 January — numbers of men go out on it to fish for Herrings. They sit on 

 a small sled, and propel themselves over the surface of the ice at a great 

 pace by means of an iron-shod pole. Arrived as near the edge of the ice 

 as they can venture, a hole is broken through with the pole, and a line to 

 which is attached four or six hooks is let down. At the end of the line is 

 fastened a heavy lead-sinker provided with two formidable hooks. The 

 line is held in the hand and drawn gently up and down till a bite is 

 obtained, when it is hauled up as rapidly as possible. When there is a 

 large shoal of Herrings I have often seen three or four caught at once, one 

 or two being frequently foul-hooked by the grappling-hooks on the sinker 

 as it is hauled through the shoal. The fish average about 12 in., and are 

 exceedingly beautiful when first taken out of the water, but the intense 

 cold — often 3° or 4°F. — soon freezes them and turns them to a dull silver- 

 blue. — Harold Raeburn (31, Clare Road, Halifax). 



Greenland Shark at Overstrand. — On July 12th a Greenland Shark, 

 Lcemargus borealis, came ashore at Overstrand in Norfolk, alive, but so 

 exhausted as to be easily captured. When I saw it, a few hours afterwards, 

 its eye was green, and the skin a dull white colour — not nearly so leaden 

 as the plate in Couch's ' British Fishes,' by which we identified it. The 

 fishermen considered it weighed 8 cwt. My coachman measured it, and 

 made its length 10 ft. 3 in., and the circumference 6 ft. lin., but perhaps 

 it was unnaturally inflated. It contained no food. This Shark has been 

 bought by Mr. Cyril Flower, M.P., for Mr. W. Rothschild's Museum. 

 Mr. Southwell recorded one at Lynn so recently as last January (p. 153), 

 remarking that it was the fourth that he had notes of. — J. H. Gurney 

 (Keswick, Norwich). 



REPTILES. 



The Black Viper of Markwick. — The individual peculiarity in a Black 

 Viper, referred to (p. 272) as possessing three poison-fangs in one jaw, is 

 of no specific value. I have killed the ordinary Viper with a similar 

 arrangement of the poison-fangs, and it is probably a common occurrence 

 in all poisonous snakes. There is a skeleton, in the Natural History 

 Museum at South Kensington, of a large poisonous snake (I forget of what 



