[72] The first three fishes named in this paragraph need no comment; the Weed-fish is doubtless a local name, but for what species I cannot discover. The Bass, _Labrax lupus_ (Cuv.), is, as might be expected from the nature of our coast, by no means common here. Scombri are makerells[73] in greate plentie a dish much desired butt if as Rondeletius affirmeth they feed upon sea starres & squalders (_see Note 90_) there may bee some doubt whether their flesh bee without some ill qualitie sometimes they are of a very large size & one was taken this yeare 1668 wch was by measure an ell long and of ye length of a good salmon, at Lestoffe. [73] The latter part of this paragraph, beginning, "Sometimes they are of a very large size," is written on the left-hand side of the opening, and is evidently a subsequent addition. One would be inclined to think from the great size of the fish here recorded (3 ft. 9 in.), that it may have been a species of Tunny, or even a Bonito, both of which have been taken on the Norfolk coast. Seventeen inches is a large mackerel. Herrings departed sprats or sardæ not long after succeed in great plentie wch are taken with smaller nets [& dryed _crossed out_] & smoakd & dryed like herrings become a [daint _crossed out_] sapid bitt & vendible abroad. Among these are found Bleakes or bliccæ[74] a thinne herring like fishe wch some will also think to bee young herrings. And though the sea aboundeth not with pilchards, yet they are co[=m]only taken among herrings. butt few esteeme thereof or eat them. [74] It is quite evident that the fish referred to here, and again in the sixth letter to Merrett, is not the true Bleak (_Alburnus lucideus_) of our freshwaters. It seems that the young of some species of Clupeoid was thus known, for I find it stated in a MS. note in a copy of Berkenhout's "Outlines of the Natural History of Great Britain," (1769), in the possession of Mr. T. E. Gunn, that the Bleak and the Sprat are often caught together in the sea at Aldeburgh (Suffolk) in November, and the writer of the note adds, "the Bleak is larger than the Sprat, its eyes are larger, and the upper part of its belly serrated." I think from this description and from Browne's remarks, that the young of a species of Shad must have been mistaken for the Bleak, which although found low down in our rivers almost to where the salt tide mingles with the fresh, does not I believe enter the salt water. Congers are not so co[=m]on on these coasts as on many seas about England, butt are often found upon the north coast of Norfolk, & in frostie wether left in pulks & plashes upon the ebbe of the sea. [_Fol. 30._] The sand eels Anglorum of Aldrouandus, or Tobianus of Schoneueldeus co[=m]only called smoulds taken out of the sea sands with forks & rakes about Blakeney and Burnham a small round slender fish about 3 or 4 inches long as bigge as a small Tobacco pipe a very dayntie dish.