18 THE WORLD OF THE SEA. 
they hurry to the shore when the tide goes out. The villages and 
the neighbouring hamlets all send their contingents; men and 
women, old and young, every one fit for the work undertakes some 
portion, according to his strength and activity. They are armed 
with sticks, poles, and mattocks, carrying baskets and panniers, 
sacks and nets, dragging also wheelbarrows and carts. Some gather 
the ribboned wrack (zostera), the membranous w#/va, the brown 
fucus, which used to be a source of much wealth to the dwellers by 
the sea; others collect the small shells scattered over the strand. 
The boys mount the rocks and pick off the whelks, the mussels, 
EB — > Te = =i y/ 
Sui Me nt 
EZZ, UW ST 
FISHING NETS, 
the sea ear-shells, and the limpets; the girls seek the mactra, the 
cytherea, the bucardia, and other edible marine animals; the 
women wade in the water knee-deep, and secure considerable 
quantities of shells, which are sold as ornaments. They overturn 
the stones, or probe the cracks in the rocks with a hook attached to 
a stick. Here they find polypes and cuttle-fish, and sometimes 
sea-eels or congers which have taken refuge here. They sound the 
little pools which the ebbing tide has left here and there, using 
a small-sized net with a long handle, or they drag the pool with a 
small-meshed net, and so take the animals which are left behind 
by the sea—mollusks, crustaceans, or fish. The men dig the sand, 
and turn up the sea-hedgehogs, the donaces, and the cockles. 
In the Mediterranean, and in the small seas where there are 
