FISH-NOTES FROM GREAT YARMOUTH. 31 



this involuntary amputation was unnatural. I forwarded dia- 

 grams and account to the Hon. Mrs. Stuart, who is greatly 

 interested in humane movements, and she concurred in my 

 opinion. It is rather curious that the use of a wooden peg en- 

 gaged the attention of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (U.S.A.) 

 some little time after, when a magistrate had seen fit to decide 

 that a Lobster was not an animal, and that there was no law 

 against cruelty to Lobsters. Whether the Court came to the con- 

 clusion that the creature was a vegetable or a mineral (seeing that 

 its shelly covering is composed of chalk), I have not yet learnt. 



An Octopus, the body of which equalled in size a lemon, was 

 taken in a longshore-net a few hundred yards from the shore off 

 Yarmouth on July 9th. 



Since publishing in the ' Transactions of the Norfolk and 

 Norwich Naturalists' Society' a paper on the Whales of Norfolk, 

 I have received the following communication from Mr. Victor 

 Ames, of Thornham, King's Lynn : — " I don't know if a note on 

 ' a Whale ' cast up on this coast 1487-88 is known to you. I 

 mentioned it to the late Mr. T. Southwell, after he had read his 

 last paper. He thought it very interesting ; he had not known 

 of it before. I give the title at the back of my letter : ' Original 

 Letters' during the Eeign of Henry VI. Edw. IV-V. Rich III. 

 Hy VII ... Sir John Fenn Kt. V. Vols. Murray, Albemarle 

 Street 1823 pp. 349-351. ' At Thornham in the King's Stream 

 a Whale 66 feet & more. 12 feet bigness & deepness.' Mr. 

 Southwell thought ' the King's Stream ' [i. e. the Wash] very 

 curious. There are a great many gate-posts here on this pro- 

 perty of the [jaw] bones of the Whale." 



As this occurrence and record may be new to some, I have 

 thought it worthy of publication here. 



The Seals in the Wash. — In his interesting Half-yearly 

 Report on the Eastern Sea Fisheries, ending September 30th, 

 Inspector H. Donnison again referred to the Seals (Phoca vitu- 

 Una) which have become so prominent a feature on the sands 

 lying in the Wash between the Norfolk and Lincolnshire coasts. 

 He stated that rewards of five shillings per "nose" had been 

 paid for forty-one Seals, an amount reaching to £10 5s., which 

 did not cover all the slain, several having been lost in the sea, 

 whilst a few living ones had been captured and despatched to 



