4 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



freshwater species is fairly general in Norfolk, although here 

 and there a rustic will gladly accept the biggest and slimiest 

 Bream from an angler's catch for purposes of the table, although 

 the usual fate of the various Eoach, Eudd, and Bream is to be 

 thrown either to the sow, or on to the refuse heap, to prove, in 

 the latter alternative, a great nuisance. The gentleman in 

 question, by way of experiment, had one Pike kippered and 

 smoked, and then distributed sections of it among various 

 persons, one of whom wrote : " I had for my breakfast a nice 

 cut off the kippered Pike : cooked in the way usual for the dried 

 Haddock, it was delicious, and with an entire absence of that 

 slight muddiness of taste so often found with the Pike." The 

 effort, however, was a failure, and these fish from the Broads 

 are in no better repute. It certainly is a great pity that so 

 much good food should be wasted; only Tench being held in any 

 esteem. I can testify to the edible qualities of a 1 lb. Bream, 

 filleted and boiled, and served up with any suitable sauce. In 

 my younger days it was a frequent thing for poachers to net 

 tons of these fish and despatch them to large inland towns for 

 the consumption of Jews. To-day they are allowed to exist only 

 for the delectation of anglers and (as some remark unkindly) 

 the various benefits derived from a shilling rod-tax ! 



March 11th. — An Eel floating and struggling at the surface 

 of Breydon, was found by an acquaintance of mine. He had 

 been "picking," and was returning home when he observed the 

 unhappy fish ; he struck it with his eel-pick and managed to haul 

 it safely into the punt. He afterwards sold this fine Eel for 

 half-a-crown. Noting that its throat was unduly distended, he 

 had the curiosity to force open the jaws, when he observed the 

 tail of another fish : on extricating it, a task of some difficulty, he 

 found it to be a Sea- Bullhead (Cottus scorpius), whose extended gill- 

 spines had made its removal, either way, impossible for the Eel, 

 which would certainly have perished by choking, had this man not 

 chanced to fall in with the "unequally-yoked " and unhappy pair. 



An almost similar fate attended another large Eel, in the 

 following August, near Kendal Dyke, in the Thurne river, when 

 a want of the sense of proportion led this fish to attempt a feat 

 of swallowing that it was quite incapable of performing. Mr. 

 Collinson, the water bailiff, was rowing towards Martham when 



