THE COCKLE HAEVEST. 



205 



is scarcely known elsewhere, so that it is often designated in books as the Paignton 

 cockle. A right savoury bonne louche it is, when artistically dressed. Old Dr. Turton 

 a great authority in his day for Devonshire natural history, especially on matters relating 

 to shells and shell-fish says that the cottagers about Paignton well know the ' red- 

 noses/ as they call the great cockles, and search for them at low spring tides, when 

 they may be seen lying in the sand with the fringed siphons appearing jxist above the 

 surface. They gather them in baskets and panniers, and after cleansing them a few hours 

 in cold spring-water, fry the animals in a batter made of crumbs of bread. The creatures 

 have not changed their habits nor their habitats, for they are still to be seen in the old 

 spots just as they were a century ago; nor have they lost their reputation ; they are, indeed, 

 promoted to the gratification of more refined palates now, for the cottagers, knowing on 

 which side their bread is buttered, collect the sapid cockles for the fashionables of Torquay, 

 and content themselves with 

 the humbler and smaller 

 species (Cardium edule) , which 

 rather affects the muddy fiats 

 of estuaries than sand beaches, 

 though not uncommon here. 



o 



This latter, though much in- 

 ferior in sapidity to the great 

 spinous sort, forms a far more 

 important item in the cate- 

 gory of human food, from its 

 very general distribution, its 

 extreme abundance, and the 

 ease with which it is col- 

 lected. Wherever the receding 

 tide leaves an area of ex- 

 posed mud, the common cockle is sure to be found, and hundreds of men, women, and 

 children may be seen plodding and groping over the sinking surface, with naked feet and 

 bent backs, picking up the shell-fish by thousands, to be boiled and eaten for home consump- 

 tion, or to be cried through the lanes and alleys of the neighbouring towns by stentorian 

 boys who vociferate all day long, ' Here's your fine cockles, here ! Here they are ! Here 

 they are ! Twopence a quart ! ' ' It is on the north-western coast of Scotland, however, 

 that the greatest abundance of these mollusca occurs, and there they form not a luxury 

 but even a necessary of life to the poor semi-barbarous population. The inhabitants of 

 these rocky regions enjoy an unenviable notoriety for being habitually dependent on this 

 mean diet. " Where the river meets the sea at Tongue," says Macculloch, in his " Highland 

 and Island Homes of Scotland," " there is a considerable ebb, and the long sandbanks are 

 productive of cockles in an abundance which is almost unexampled. At that time (a year 

 of scarcity) they presented every day at low water a singular spectacle, being crowded with 

 men, women, and children, who were busily digging for these shell fish as long as the 

 tide permitted. It was not unusual to see thirty or forty horses from the surrounding 



THE "WEEVER FISH. (Trackings conimitnis.) 



