

CHAPTER VI. 



AMONG the amusements of the sea-shore there is, 

 perhaps, none so capable of yielding a varied pleasure 

 to a person whose taste for Natural History is awak- 

 ened, as dredging, where it can be carried on under 

 favourable circumstances. It is not on every coast that 

 dredging can be practised. On some, the surf is habi- 

 tually too great to admit of boating, as on parts of the 

 west of Ireland, where a rock-bound shore presents no 

 harbours for boats, and the fishermen are destitute of 

 any other than canvas canoes, totally unfit for the pur- 

 poses of dredging. On these coasts the broad waves of 

 the Atlantic, continually rolling in, keep up a troubled 



