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 com̄only 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 com̄on 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 com̄only 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.
Pungitius marinus[75] or sea bansticle hauing a prickle one each side the smallest fish of the sea about an inch long sometimes drawne ashoare with netts together with weeds & pargaments[M] of the sea.
[75] The smallest of the genus Gasterosteus, or Stanstickles, is G. pungitius, the ten-spined Stickleback, but this fish is two inches long when full grown. All the species seem to be more or less indifferent to the salinity of the water. The fifteen-spined Stickleback, G. spinachia, is also sometimes taken by the shrimpers, and is the most truly marine species, but is by no means "the smallest fish of the sea."
[M] This word which Wilkin renders "fragments," is doubtless from the Latin pergamentum, and it seems likely that Browne had in view certain sea-weeds, possibly Laminaria or Ulva which, especially when dry, present somewhat the appearance and texture of parchment.