460 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



SOME FISH-NOTES FEOM GEE AT YAEMOUTH 



FOE 1907. 



By Arthur H. Patterson, A.M.B.A. 



The past year has been to me one of the least interesting of 

 years so far as appertains to matters piscine. The long dreary 

 months of gloom and chilliness seem to have been all against the 

 local shrimper -folk, on whom I have greatly to depend for strange 

 and uncommon sea-waifs ; they had scant time to bestow upon 

 anything beyond the manipulation of their nets and boats and 

 the scraping together of a bare living, " let alone," as they 

 assured me, " bortherin' about curios." Indeed, rare fishes and 

 crustaceans appear to have been 'conspicuously absent, and my 

 pickle-bottles remained in their cuddies uncorked until the end 

 of the season ; and I have but one new species to add to my 

 East Norfolk list, viz. the Four-horned Cottus. 



A large Conger was reported captured near Southwold and 

 brought into Yarmouth on Jan. 30th ; it weighed 53 lb., and 

 measured 6 ft. 8£ in. 



An attempt was made to sell Dog-fishes in the town in 

 January, and an itinerant fish-vendor harrowed a number of 

 goodly sized Picked Dogs (Acanthias vulgaris) about the town, 

 having first divested them of skins, tails, heads, and fins. These 

 two-foot lengths of " Japanese Hake," as he was pleased to term 

 them, looked assuredly tempting, and very much resembled 

 skinned Weevers, or Gurnards, pulled to an extraordinary length. 

 He cleared out his stock-in-trade, some being sold outright, 

 others being left out " on approval " ; in two or three instances 

 he was asked for more, but in other cases prejudice stepped in, 

 and he could not argue his clients into a continuance of custom. 

 The experiment was not a sufficient success to warrant the 

 trouble of " Dogs " being marketed, and only in exceptional 

 instances, when any considerable number are netted, do these 

 fish change hands. These are smuggled into the fried-fish shops 

 of less scrupulous fishmongers, who prefer to hide them under 



