384 



THE ZOOLOGIST. 



one is used to at Yarmouth. The sandy dunes were being 

 levelled (on the 30th), and prepared for the use of the Scotch 

 girls, whose numbers are increasing each fishing season. 



The most interesting trip during my holiday investigations 

 was to Aldeburgh, on Sept. 1st. There were but few visitors on 

 the stony beach, at the foot of whose steep incline the sea-waves 

 have eternally rattled the rounded pebbles. There seemed in the 

 everlasting rattle the sobbing of some disappointed great Evil 

 Spirit. The boats were out a-trawling, Soles above all else their 

 quest, and they would not be home till noon. So I tramped 

 along the apex of that unbound shingly rampart — scrunch, 

 scrunch — to Slaughden, a tiny hamlet a mile from the town. 



How far its roots went down in the stone-heap I could not say, 

 but there flourished with great grey-green leaf-tufts the yellow- 

 horned poppy (Glacium flavum), a most delightful seaside wild 

 flower ; sorrel and coarse thistles grew sparsely ; Brassica 

 oler.acece, Salsola hale, Crambe maritima, Vicia lutea, and some 

 other shore-plants that I did not recognise, cropped up here and 

 there. The only birds I saw were a few grey Gulls. There was 

 not a Tern in evidence, and this, too, where there was, but three 

 or four years since, a well-protected colony ! * 



At Slaughden I made the acquaintance of an entertaining 

 old man of the sea, a Mr. Chatton, of charming personality, a 

 boat-builder, shipwright, eel-catcher, sea-angler, and spratter in 

 turn. From him I gathered that there were from twenty-five to 

 thirty Sprat-boats at Aldeburgh, carrying three, sometimes four, 

 and rarely but two hands. The boats were " punts " of about 

 twenty feet. A "fleet" of nets carried by a spratter was com- 

 posed of thirty nets, that spread a full half-mile, of small mesh, 

 and three fathoms deep. They had no deadly stow-nets on that 

 coast, which killed the fry of every kind of fish. The Sprat 

 Fishery was on from the end of October until late in December, 

 sometimes till Christmas-time, and on rare occasions Sprats 

 were taken early in the spring. Sprats were uncertain, like 

 Mackerel. Their presence could be detected ; even if a bit 

 windy the sea where they were would be like glass, and oily in 

 appearance [as I have seen water in which Herrings had shoaled] ; 



>:: Of. the destruction of Terns in 1 Wild Life on a Norfolk Estuary,' 

 pp. 273-278. 



