368 



THE ZOOLOGIST. 



practicable to open a communication with the sea at Lowestoft" ; 

 in 1821 a report was published, estimating the cost at .£'87,000. 

 Yarmouth, of course, opposed this scheme. Royal assent was 

 given in 1827, and the scheme completed in 1833. Before entire 

 completion the sea was admitted through the lock-gates : — " The 

 salt water," says Suckling, " entered the lake with a strong 

 under-current, the fresh water running out at the same time to 

 the sea upon the surface. The fresh water of the lake was raised 

 to the top by the eruption of the salt water beneath, and an 



immense quantity of yeast-like scum rose to the surface 



At a short distance from the lock next the lake there was a per- 

 ceptible and clearly defined line where the Salter water and fresh 



met Lake Lothing was thickly studded with the bodies 



of Pike, Carp, Perch, Bream, Koach, and Dace; multitudes were 

 carried into the ocean, and strewn afterwards upon the beach, 

 most of them having been bitten by Dog-fish, which abound in 

 the bay. It is a singular fact that a Pike of about twenty pounds 

 in weight was taken up dead near the Mutford end of the lake, 

 and on opening it a Herring was found in it entire." 



Here we have had shown in a limited area how the fauna of 

 a locality can be eliminated or altered. Lake Lothing has been 

 changed from a haunt of freshwater fishes into a receptacle for 

 shoals from the sea. All beauty has been eradicated, and the 

 place is, as Christopher Davies* tersely remarks, " at low water 

 . . . as malodorous as the worst of Dutch canals." 



That the deep sluggish waters of the Waveney did at one 

 time run freely into the sea below old Lowestoft is an undoubted 

 fact ; the same changes which affected the broadland district, 

 joining the little archipelago of islands to the mainland (thanks 

 to silt from the rivers and drift-sand brought from the sea), had 

 their effects upon Lothing-land. I have shown the general 

 appearance of East Norfolk, including Lowestoft's position, at 

 the time of the Eomans, in a recent publication, to which the 

 reader may refer, t The history of Lowestoft (Lestoffe, Laystoft, 

 or, as it was anciently designated, Lothnwistoft, probably 

 acquired its name from Lothbrog, the Danish noble, who in- 

 advertently landed here in a.d. 864), owing to its contiguity to 



* ' Norfolk Broads and Rivers,' published in the eighties, 

 f 'Wild Life on a Norfolk Estuary,' p. 2. 



