58 LIFE IN THE SEA [PART I 



found shellfish like the cockle with other small bivalves, or it may 

 be beds of lugworms {Arenicolci). In or on the sand and mud are 

 countless millions of diatoms, and these minute plants replace the 

 larger sea- weeds of the rocky shore. Or there may be a gravelly 

 shore covered with a 23rofusion of mussels. 



Where, as on the west coast of England, we have rapidly 

 flowing tides wdth a large rise and fall, and a sandy coast sloping 

 down very gradually into deep water, the foreshore or littoral zone 

 is the region of the inshore fisherman. There, as in Morecambe 

 Bay, where the contours of the " banks " and channels are always 

 shifting, w^e have the great cockle beds, and there are miles and 

 miles of foreshore densely inhabited by these gregarious molluscs. 

 There too the stake nets, many hundred of yards in length it may 

 be, are set on the margins of the channels. When the sands are 

 covered by the flood tide fishes like plaice, flounders and dabs are 

 caught in these nets and are removed when next the tide lays 

 bare the sands. Here and there are the " baulk-nets," structures 

 of stakes and wattles ; and the " hose-nets," long cylindrical nets 

 kept open by rings and furnished with pockets and into which 

 shrimps are^ carried. When the sands are covered by the tide the 

 smaller boats trawl in the channels for flat-fish or for shrimps, 

 while on the shallower flats, as on the sands near Southport, the 

 trawl, or shank-net rather, may be dragged from a horse and cart, 

 the horse wading up to its belly in the water, with a picturesque, 

 indolent " farmer-fisherman " in the cart. Men wade in the water 

 pushing large nets bent on a semicircular frame of wood and 

 carrying baskets on their backs into which the shrimps caught in 

 the net are put. On the harder parts of the foreshore or on the 

 " scaups," banks, or scars, are mussels, and men go down to these 

 when the tide is out and pick them up. Gradually these mussels 

 beds accumulate mud underneath them until by-and-by a 

 gale demolishes them, rolling up the felted mass of mussels and 

 mud like a carpet, and again laying bare the gravelly bed, which is 

 soon repopulated by young mussels. Hordes of starfishes may 

 invade the mussel beds and may totally decimate them. The 

 echinoderm forces apart the valves of the shell and sucks out the 

 soft body of the mollusc. On the stones of the beach are the peri- 

 winkles, which are also picked by hand. On the sands are the lug- 



