LOBSTERS CRABS. 149 



tion of the peasantry waited anxiously for twilight, and then, 

 fortified by maternal advice and female resolution, set off in 

 troops to the strand to share the pleasures and the perils of 

 this interesting but dangerous amusement. 



A crowd of a more youthful description of the peasantry, 

 are collected every spring-tide to gather cockles on the same 

 sands by daylight when the tide answers. The quantities of 

 these shell-fish thus procured would almost exceed belief; and 

 I have frequently seen more than would load a donkey, col- 

 lected during one tide by the children of a single cabin. They 

 form a valuable and wholesome addition to the limited variety 

 that the Irish peasant boasts at his humble board ; and afford 

 children, too young for otHer tasks, a safe and useful 

 employment. 



Indeed, its plentiful supply of shell-fish may be enumerated 

 among the principal advantages which this wild coast offers to 

 its inhabitants. Along the cliffs, whether in the islands or on 

 the main, lobsters are found in abundance ; and, if the peasan- 

 try possessed the necessary means for prosecuting the fishery, 

 it might at times afford them a lucrative employment. But, 

 simple as the apparatus is, they do not possess it ; and the 

 lobsters obtained by sinking pots and baskets in the deep sea, 

 are taken by strangers, who come for this purpose from a con- 

 siderable distance. Those killed by the islanders are only 

 procurable at low springs, when the ebbing of the water 

 beyond its customary limits, permits caves and crannies in the 

 rocks being investigated, which in ordinary tides could not be 

 entered. 



Crabs are found on this coast of considerable size and 

 sufficiently numerous. Like the lobsters, they are only acci- 

 dentally procured ; but there is no doubt but a large supply 

 could be obtained if proper means were employed to take 

 them. 



The most esteemed of all the shell-fish tribe by the western 

 fishermen is the scallop, which here is indeed of very superior 

 size and flavour. They are commonly found by the oyster- 

 dredgers in deep water ; and are estimated so highly as a 

 luxury, as to cause their being transferred to the next gentle- 

 man who may have been serviceable to the peasant who finds 

 them, or whose future favour it may be advisable to propitiate. 

 Indeed, in former days, and those too not very distant from 

 our own times, to approach a justice of the peace without 



