SOME FISH-NOTES FROM GREAT YARMOUTH. 15 



of these huge Herring- eaters, and the much fewer numbers 

 of other predaceous Cetaceans, Cods, and other large fishes to be 

 found to-day in this part of the North Sea, must make for at 

 least a possible increase in this great East Coast harvest 

 of the sea. 



The Messrs. Paget writing in 1834 (' Sketch of the Natural 

 History of Great "Yarmouth ') with regard to the then more 

 frequent appearances of Cetaceans, remark : " Balmna physalis 

 (Fin-backed Whale) has several times been seen and taken in 

 the herring-nets"; and, again, " Delphinus bidens (Bottlenose 

 Whale), a large one caught in a Herring-net, November, 1816 ; 

 a smaller specimen about twenty years before." The first- 

 named would belong to the Eorquals. 



Only in the opening days of the great Herring Fishery did a 

 few small carcases of Piked Dogs wash ashore : as the fever and 

 hurry of the fishing intensified, everything was subordinated to 

 the capture and to the inbringing of the Herring. Men worked 

 night and day, often getting less than four hours' sleep in three 

 days (a condition of labour with which trade unions might 

 safely interfere), so that everything foreign to the desired catch 

 was pitched overboard as soon as possible ; not a solitary Shark, 

 Dolphin, or Porpoise, to my knowledge, was brought into port ; 

 the only one of the first-named referred to in the county papers 

 was an average-sized Porbeagle, taken near Sheringham ; this a 

 fisherman or two carted about in a barrow as a vara pisces for 

 the sake of what few coppers the curious might bestow upon 

 them. 



Among the few Crustaceans worthy of remark, I have already 

 recorded the capture of a large Edible Crab (Cancer pagurus) off 

 the coast of Portugal (cf. ' The Zoologist,' Feb. 1913, p. 77), the 

 large pincer claws of which I had seen mounted on a shield like 

 a Fallow Deer's. The size of this giant may be imagined when 

 I measured a free chela (or movable claw) at 6 in., working in a 

 " hand " 9 in. in girth ! 



A male Velvet Crab (Portunus puber) was brought to me by a 

 shrimper on April 28th ; and on May 20th a medium-sized 

 Crab came to hand with an extra leg growing on the left side, 

 from an extra socket working on the " swivel " of the third leg 

 from the tail. 



