258 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



about twenty miles, from the island of Mecera to Cockenzie. 

 The best are procured near Burntisland, on a bed belong- 

 ing to the Earl of Morton, on the rocky ground opposite 

 Porto Bello, and at Preston Pans. Not many years since 

 capital oysters might sometimes be bought in Edinburgh 

 at a shilling a hundred. 



The Cockenzie fishermen derive a good portion of 

 their annual income from the oyster trade, and dredge for 

 them at high and low tide. The crews of the boats keep 

 up a wild and monotonous song (in which they believe 

 there is much virtue) all the time they are dredging, and 

 assert that it charms the oysters into the dredge. (<?) The 

 same authority further states that, as a class, the fishers 

 of the Scottish coast are very superstitious. They do not 

 like being numbered whilst standing or walking. It 

 offends them very much to ask them, whilst on their way 

 to their boats, where they are going to-day. They con- 

 sider it unlucky to see the impression of a very flat foot 

 upon the sand, and they will not go to work if, in the 

 morning, on leaving their houses, a pig should cross their 

 path. An experimental steam fishing-vessel has been built 

 at Cockenzie ; she is a dandy cutter-rigged craft, forty tons 

 burden, assisted with auxiliary screw steam power, for the 

 purpose of dredging oysters during the winter months, and 

 deep-sea trawling during the summer. 



The celebrated "Pandore" oysters are principally 

 obtained from the neighbourhood of Preston Pans. The 

 exclusive right to fish, dredge, and cultivate oysters and 

 mussels, belongs to the barony of Prestongrange, extend- 

 ing as far as the shores of the barony and to the centre of 



(e) " The Fisher Folk of the Scottish East Coast," Mac-millarf 's 

 Magazine, October, 1862, No. }6. 



