FISH-NOTES FROM GREAT YARMOUTH. 3 



the dredges are down an hour, "if they go clear," i.e., do not 

 foul wreckage, or enclose some unwelcome boulder; these 

 crustaceans mostly die in the nets, none surviving many minutes 

 even if drawn out of the water alive. " Browns " will live all 

 night in a cool place — -e.g., in baskets on a cellar floor — and go 

 kicking into the copper next morning. Common Prawns will 

 live for several hours ; I examined some late in September that 

 kicked vigorously when handled three hours after coming out of 

 the water, even after they had been buried among the common 

 catch, with layers of the deceased ZEsops above them. It is a 

 matter, no doubt, of capacity for living by preference in the more 

 shallow aerated water. Than the " Pink Shrimp," fresh and 

 warm from a Yarmouth copper, no crustacean can be sweeter to 

 the palate, the Harwich and Lowestoft methods of salting and 

 boiling producing an infinitely less tasty dainty. 



" Eob " Colly, one of the most entertaining of my shrimper 

 friends, who corroborates the above remarks, tells me that the 

 League Hole, inside the Holm Sands at Corton, near Lowestoft, 

 is the favourite "Pink" ground of the local shrimpers: and 

 that the largest " Browns " are met with off Bacton and 

 Hasbro'. Here also, the nets used being trawls, some good 

 catches of Soles are often made in July. 



Towards the end of 1914 young finger-length Grey Mullet 

 were abundant in local waters, the Breydon smelters netting 

 many. 



Sea-fish at that time being so scarce, nothing that was 

 edible was rejected; and ridiculously small Skate were brought 

 to market that would at any other time have been esteemed too 

 insignificant for sale. It was fortunate that at the year end and 

 early in January some numbers of small Cod were captured by 

 long-lining, and these for some time were the primest of the fish 

 on sale. ■ On January 1st a well-known Breydoner, " Blue " 

 Calver, who for most months in the year lays pots for Eels, 

 baiting them with Shrimps and Viviparous Blennies that he 

 captures in a small trawl-net, put his trawl-gear into Breydon, 

 and secured on two or three occasions numbers of Flounders, a 

 species in no great local repute. The first lot realised thirty 

 shillings, an hitherto unheard-of figure; and the second, twenty 

 shillings. I recognised the fish, on sight, on a fishmonger's slab, 



