FISH-NOTES FROM GREAT YARMOUTH. 17 



Mr. F. C. Cook writes me on December 8th that " a Cod was 

 exhibited in a fish shop window on November 4th that had been 

 blown up by the explosion of a mine, and landed quite on the 

 deck of a fishing boat ; a piece of the mine was also shown with 

 it." There can be no doubt that many fish have been killed by 

 mines, but as these victims almost invariably sink, they at once 

 offer food to other species and to the crustaceans that feed upon 

 carrion. I recorded the washing up of a lean disreputable Cod 

 which had undoubtedly been a victim to a submarine explosion : 

 wreckage had at the time been blown up by the Trinity House 

 authorities (vide 'Zoologist,' December, 1911). 



Inspector Donnison in his most interesting half-yearly Eeports 

 on the Eastern Sea Fisheries called attention, in March, to the 

 abundant catches of Smelts in the Witham, both by anglers and 

 fisherfolk, which our Aldeburgh fishermen, who are always up 

 in arms against the Terns, would do well to notice. These men 

 should surely know the difference between the Smelt and the 

 "whitebait" (juvenile Herrings). His remarks and statistics 

 given of the Mussel and Cockle industries make very entertain- 

 ing and profitable reading. The Yarmouth Mussel — that in my 

 younger days, before the rivers and Breydon were so hopelessly 

 polluted by sewage, gave employment at a dull season to quite a 

 score of humble folk who dredged for the mollusc — is now 

 entirely prohibited as food, and only an occasional fisherman 

 takes it to sell as bait. 



The Inspector complains of the presence of so many Dog-fish 

 (Acanthias vulgaris), whose attacks on Mackerel caught in the 

 nets often spoil one fish in five. He advocates a greater con- 

 sumption of the " dog," giving as a proof of its increasing 

 popularity the weight landed in England and Wales as 31,262 

 cwt. in 1911, and 55,539 cwt. in 1912, mostly taken off the 

 south and south-east coasts. The species is, I find, commonly 

 seen on Lowestoft fish market, but local prejudice is nearly as 

 strong as ever in Yarmouth, where it is seldom put up for sale, 

 and is then only covertly purchased by fish fryers. Mr. 

 Donnison mentions an instance when, crossing from the Norfolk 

 to the Lincolnshire coast he " watched the crew of a French 

 trawler getting in their net, and it was so full of Dog-fish that it 

 was only by instalments that the catch was boarded." 

 Zool. 4th ser. vol. XIX., January, 1915. c 



