SOME FISH-NOTES FROM GREAT YARMOUTH. 461 



the counter to exposing them in the window, until wanted. Dead 

 examples of various sizes have not infrequently been washed 

 ashore, having been pitched out of the Herring-luggers during 

 the Herring-fishing. Quite a number of Picked Dogs ventured 

 up Breydon in November ; I saw Jary the watcher, who pursues 

 Smelts in the winter months, capture several at one haul. I 

 amused myself — rather cruelly, I fear — in watching the move- 

 ments of two or three I threw into a brackish ditch at the foot of 

 the walls ; their method of swimming near the surface was very 

 erratic and undulating. 



I obtained in February a very beautiful 11 in. Brill, the upper 

 side of which was entirely white, with the exception of four 

 brown shilling-sized spots and three smaller ones ; these were 

 distributed around the fish, four being on the white dorsal fin — 

 i. e. on the right side of the fish— one was on the base of the tail, 

 and the other two on the anal fin. This fish was figured in the 

 ' Countryside ' of Nov. 23rd. 



On Feb. 6th a twelve-inch Mackerel foolishly came up with 

 the tide to Breydon, a most unusual locality for the species. 

 The sewage-tainted water proved too much for its powers of 

 endurance, and coming to the surface near the entrance of the 

 Bure a person who had been watching its erratic movements 

 deftly caught it by hand. 



A freshly captured Torpedo Bay {Torpedo vulgaris) was 

 brought from Lowestoft by a fish-vendor, from whom I pur- 

 chased it, on Feb. 9th ; and from the same man I received a 

 Starry Bay (Raia radiata), the size of a dinner-plate, on Feb. 

 20th. I discovered in its mouth a Skulpin (Callionymus lyra). 

 I have been unable to ascertain the precise localities where 

 these two interesting fishes were captured, but from their fresh- 

 ness I am inclined to think they were taken in our East Norfolk 

 waters. 



Knowing my interest in strange fishes, a fisherman's wife 

 called on me with three Bullhead-like fishes, which I at once be- 

 lieved to be the Four-horned Cottus (Cottus quadricomis) , a species 

 for which I had been on the look-out for a number of years. The 

 longest measured 8£ in. in length. This was on March 3rd. 

 With them came five Broad-nosed Pipe-fishes (Siphonostoma 

 typhle). I could not learn from the woman the exact locality 



