MISCELLANEOUS NOTES FROM GREAT YARMOUTH. 363 



straggling and attenuated in its growth. A friend complained to 

 me about the superabundance of water-lilies {Nymphcea alba) 

 on some of the Broads. The reeds by the Waveney-side have 

 been enormously lengthy, and the small stinging insects that 

 haunt them have been unduly vigorous and attentive, as one has 

 at eventide sat fishing for eels for next morning's breakfast. 

 Wasps up to late August had never been less in number, in my 

 experience ; half a dozen at most visited me in the "Moorhen," 

 whereas in ordinary seasons they are fussing in and out all day 

 long. Never before, I think, had the village children been so 

 industrious, at the proper season, in destroying nests. Butter- 

 flies have not had a good time, and the hive-bees around have 

 become almost exterminated by a fell disease; one friend, who 

 usually reaps a goodly harvest of honey from a dozen hives, had 

 in August .(1916) but one accidental swarm (that voluntarily 

 came to an empty hive), and even this, he told me, was then in 

 a very bad way. All the other swarms had succumbed. 



Considering the occasional quantities of waste petrol that 

 float to Breydon, and that naturally must settle for a time on the 

 mud-flats until blown on a larger tide to the sides, added to the 

 sewage that escapes thither on the flood-tide, the types of 

 crustaceans and vermes, etc., that live on and in the ooze, still 

 exist in wonderful numbers, although the hardening of the flats 

 in many places makes the mud too solid for even these low 

 forms of life to continue. But at low water and half-tide it is 

 most interesting to sprawl low in one's punt, and watch the tiny 

 syphons of small clams moving in a curious manner, and the 

 out-pushing of small nereids (Nereis diver sicolor) ; to see the 

 scuttlings to and fro of the shore-crabs that are scouting around 

 for any Grangon vulgaris or Palmmon varians that may be rarely 

 caught napping ; and then to watch the curiously crawling 

 Corophium. At such times one often has the " grup "-loving 

 Greenshank not far away, busily scooping around in search 

 of Buch crustaceans as he may find in the narrow and shallow 

 gullies, loudly prating at each small surprise. 



1915. 



September 10th. — Saw a flock of over fifty Knots on Breydon. 

 Many "Wheatears of the year now drawing to the coast. 



