94 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



(dead Dogs and Cats) that occasionally came to the surface in 

 decaying sacks, or when the gas-inflated carcases came to the 

 surface in defiance of bricks or stones attached to them : all 

 carrion drifted to the "ronds " (saltings) was speedily skeletonized. 

 This " gull-hunger " increased as the war proceeded and deve- 

 loped, and the great autumnal Herring fishery of the East Coast 

 dwindled to small proportions, and finally to vanishing point. I 

 need hardly repeat my remarks on the sad pass these interesting 

 birds were brought to (vide 'Zoologist,' Jan., 1915, pp. 14-15) 

 when the Herrings became scarce. In ordinary seasons the 

 great numbers of Gulls that work southward to this neighbour- 

 hood find, as a rule, plenty of washed-up Herrings, with stale 

 Mackerel, dead Weevers, Scads (Horse-Mackerel), Dog-fishes, 

 and small Whitings, which have either dropped out of the 

 herring-nets after being enmeshed, or have been thrown back 

 into the sea by the fishermen when " scudding" (cleaning and 

 clearing) their nets when coming home from the fishing grounds, 

 or that have been dropped in the river and carried out on the 

 ebb, and thrown up afterwards on the sands at the harbour- 

 mouth by the flood-tide. 



Day by day the hungry birds swarmed to the sands, just 

 north of the Gorleston Pier, and stood about listlessly but with 

 evident watchfulness for any small mercy in the shape of broken 

 Herring, or any other edible, thrown shorewards by the waves, 

 on sight of which a great commotion followed, with a screaming 

 chorus of disputation and the fluttering of a thousand wings. 

 On some days, I am confident, many a bird " went supperless to 

 bed " — a cold one at that, on mudflat and flooded marsh. That 

 new departure — their frequenting of the fish-wharf and the 

 roosting on the top of gutting- and curing-sheds — was a novelty 

 as far as Yarmouth and Gorleston are concerned, although for a 

 year or two previously, on scarce days, the various big Gulls 

 (" Greys," and adult Saddlebacks, and Herring-Gulls) had begun 

 to perch upon the tops of the pyramids of empty and full barrels. 

 The sight of "swills" of Herrings on the wharf, and the 

 " troughs " of fish in the pickling-yards tempted them to the 

 busier haunts of men, and the pity shown them by the fishing 

 fraternity, coupled with a certain immunity from molestation, 

 reassured them. For a number of days broken fish was thrown 



