Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/574

540 observe and to gather together interesting facts in relation to local marine fishes; but beyond that, and the compilation of one or two lists, little systematic recording of rare species, and of the economy and changes of fish-life, has been done.

The fresh-water species have been fairly well attended to, their habits and habitats being alike known to anglers, river poachers, and others: the first are ever-increasing in number, and angling clubs in the neighbourhood are legion; the second, thanks to the energies of the Yare and Bure Preservation Society, have had their day, or nearly so; and if the Yarmouth district angling fraternity would give greater support, pecuniary and otherwise, to the Society, poaching would become an unknown quantity. Tons of fresh-water fishes have from time to time been netted—somewhat audaciously too—yet the rivers and broads still fairly abound in certain species. The owners and tenants of the Broadlands have found it to their interest to see that the races of coarse fish have not been unduly depleted.

New fresh-water species have not been, except in one or two instances, introduced, and these were failures. Notably a consignment of Trout, Salmo fario, turned into the Filby Broad (where they had access to the Ormesby and Rollesby Broads), and the Black Basse, Centropristes atrarius. A few of the former attained some size, almost the last survivor being hooked in 1896; and anglers were glad to be rid of the latter voracious species. Neither increased their numbers, and both are now virtually extinct.

The Norfolk coast-line is a favourite rendezvous for certain migratory species, Herrings to wit; the bays and shallows of the Norfolk Estuary (the Wash) form a very suitable breeding ground for many species, but the seaboard in the more immediate neighbourhood of Great Yarmouth is not, in my estimation, favourable to the habits of a great majority, the flat, sandy, shifting nature of the bottom affording but little shelter, although in the finer months it abounds in Crustacea and Entomostraca. The abundance of Crustacea may be imagined when some eighty Shrimp-boats, carrying a man and boy or two men each, working dredges, and in some cases small trawls with a beam of from twelve to fourteen feet, find their owners remunerative employment from March to end of September. Their catches are principally the Æsop's Prawn, Pandalus annulicornis (known locally as