4 
ON DEPOSITIONS OF MUD IN THE TAY. 
the Stickleback agrees with mine in many particulars, though I believe I have 
furnished you with something that may lay claim to a degree of novelty. Mr. 
Yarrell gives an observation of Pennant’s, that these fish “ are occasionally so 
numerous at Spalding, in Lincolnshire, that a man employed by a farmer to take 
them, has earned four shillings a day for a considerable time, by selling them for 
a halfpenny per bushel. From my own knowledge I can state, that they were 
once so plentiful in the neighbourhood of Lynn, Norfolk, before the drainage of 
that district was carried to its present extent, that boat-loads were 'conveyed 
along the coast and sold to the farmers, who used them advantageously for 
manuring lands : the supply is now exhausted. At Cambridge I have seen these 
two diminutive creatures afford the greatest amusement imaginable to the infan¬ 
tile anglers of the town, who may be seen every day on the Trumpington-road, 
in the summer months, equiped with tiny rods and lines, to which are sometimes 
attached enormously disproportionate floats, the size of many Sticklebacks, 
fishing with all the gravity and intense interest of Waltons, addressing each 
other with notes of admiration or ‘disgust as the sport proceeds favourably or 
unfavourably. It is curious that these urchins do not use a hook, but tie a 
Worm to the line tight in the middle; and the fish are generally such tenacious 
biters that they allow themselves to be pulled out by the teeth ; they are then 
strung upon a needle and thread, with which most of these “ brothers of the 
angle” are provided. 
Boughton , Norfolk , 
June 13, 1838. 
[Mi*. Jenyns considers Cuvier’s Gasterosteus trachurus to be a variety of the 
Three-spined Stickleback (G. aculeatus , Linn.). We beg to thank Mr. Drosier 
for his interesting notes. We well remember his brother, Mr. Richard Drosier, 
as a contributor to Loudon’s Magazine of Natural History .— Ed.] 
SINGULAR PHENOMENA CONNECTED WITH THE DEPOSITION 
OF MUD IN THE TAY.* 
By George Buist, Esq. 
Having had occasion to make some investigations in reference to the embank¬ 
ing and reclaiming of land from the river Tay, in Scotland, I was led to enter 
into inquiries relative to the mode in which the silt, of which the rich alluvial 
* Communicated by Mr. Henry Buist. 
