604 
MR. A. H. PATTERSON’S NATURAL HISTORY 
XIV. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES FROM YARMOUTH. 
By Arthur H. Patterson. 
Read 31 st March, 1908. 
1907. 
Than the year 1907, I do not recall to mind a less interesting 
one, from a natural history point of view : the summer was 
abnormally unpleasant, and I visited Breydon only at very 
uncertain intervals, and then with little hope of seeing birds 
of more than ordinary interest. In matters piscine, the 
same long, dreary months of gloom and chilliness made 
almost hopeless the quest for rare or interesting species ; and 
I think I can safely say I never wrote the last line in my 
“ note book ” with less regret at the year’s ending. 
The only fish that I was enabled satisfactorily to add to 
the County fauna was the Four-horned Cottus ( Cottas 
quadricornis), one of which obligingly took the bait of a sea- 
angler fishing from one of the piers, who eventually spoiled 
it as a “ specimen ” by pickling it in brine (he was a pork 
butcher), as if it had been a ham, and then trying to set it 
up. The shrimpers helped me exceedingly little, for, as they 
assured me, “ they’d got enough to do to scrape up a livin’ 
without botherin’ about curios ! ” It has been a matter 
of surprise to me how these poor fellows remained solvent, 
and saved their little craft through a long trying winter, 
which, however, some considerably shortened this spring 
(1908) by getting to work with their boats in February, 
a month earlier than is their wont. They confessed to being 
driven to it. Strangely enough, they have fallen in with the 
“ Pink Shrimps,” or /Esop’s Prawns ( Pandalus annulicornis ) 
