PATELLA. 



239 



party in the little island of Herm. Tlie hour was un- 

 fashionable, one o^ clock; and the meal was served on 

 the turf in the open air. This consisted of fine limpets, 

 laid in their usual position, and cooked by being covered 

 with a heap of straw, which had been set on fire about 

 twenty minutes before dinner ; there was also bread and 

 butter. The company were a farmer, two labourers, a 

 sheep-dog, the late Dr. Lukis, and myself. We squatted 

 round the smouldering heap, and left on the board a 

 couple of hundred empty shells. The limpet used to 

 be eaten by the Faroese ; and in Ireland and the north 

 of England the consumption was prodigious between 

 twenty and thirty years ago, according to the accounts 

 furnished by Mr. Patterson and the late Dr. Johnston. 

 The former estimated that 11 ^ tons of boiled limpets 

 were sold in one season about Larne, co. Antrim ; 

 and the latter states that nearly twelve millions had 

 been collected yearly on the coast of Berwickshire, until 

 the supply was almost exhausted. These quantities were 

 exclusive of what were collected to feed the pigs and 

 poultry. The Shetlanders are either more fastidious, 

 or prefer real fish ; they will not even eat an oyster. 

 Some of the Orkneymen seem to be imbued with a 

 similar prejudice ; for we find in the life of Sir Walter 

 Scott, that "the inhabitants of the rest of the Orcades 

 despise those of Swona for eating limpets, as being the 

 last of human meannesses.''^ The limpet is not omitted 

 in the old pharmacopoeia ; and Rondeletius prescribes it 

 eaten raw as a gentle purgative. It is a most taking 

 bait for coal-fish. In Shetland it is chewed by the 

 fishermen, and spat into the sea to attract a shoal ; this 

 they call " sowing.''^ The yeUow or " ware-limpet '' 

 (var. depressa) is preferred by them as bait ; but 

 according to Bean and Alder it is rejected by the fisher- 



