A Breath of Sea Air 



at the entrance so, that, if it were possible for him to enter, it 

 was equally possible to escape. The only difference was what 

 seemed to be the purely psychological one that the entrance 

 tunnel tapered inwards so that it looked narrower from the 

 inside than the outside, narrower and somewhat higher. But Jan 

 doubted if the psychology of lobsters was subtle enough for them 

 to appreciate such differences. It might be a little more difficult 

 to get out than to get in, and there were probably one or two 

 slight technical problems of leverage, but a lobster that made a 

 sensible all-out attempt on the entrance to this trap would be 

 certain to escape. His own final theory was that, after a good 

 meal, the caged beast felt like resting and had the lobster equi- 

 valent of forty winks. By the time he woke up he was already 

 being hauled, hand over hand, at the end of a rope through the 

 water and towards the boat. 



It had often been rumoured that these Scottish creels were 

 ineffective when compared to the wicker pots used by English 

 lobstermen. A glance was enough to tell some reformers why the 

 round baskets, that looked like a cross between a bee-hive and a 

 cage in the zoo, were traps from which no large shellfish could 

 escape and to which they would all be attracted. But, when 

 Charlie Tulloch had come up north from Devon he had brought 

 a large fleet of them with him and, though he had had the help of 

 one of the best of the young Orcadian fishermen, his landings 

 from the grounds around Hoy had been only slightly worse than 

 the average for the season. And then, of course, there had come 

 a gale, from the south west this time, and the whole Atlantic had 

 gone exploring every cupboard of the western coasts, and a lot 

 of stone shelves had been torn down. It so happened that 

 Charlie's pots were moored on the west side of the island. Two 

 of them survived. The rest were milled down into sawdust, and 

 he couldn't afford to replace them. So Charlie, too, had taken 

 to the Scottish creel. It was cheaper and easier to make. And he, 

 at least, was satisfied that, in spite of the simplicity of its oak and 

 hazel framework, it caught as many lobsters. Nevertheless Jan 



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