GUNS AND GUN-MAKING. 177 



cliffs, whether in the islands or on the main, lobsters 

 are found in abundance ; and if the peasantry 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 considerable 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 accidentally 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 gentleman 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 

 '* a trifle for his honour" would be an offence of passing 

 magnitude ;- a basket of chickens, a cleave of scallops, 

 or an ass-load of oysters, harbingered the aggriever and 

 the aggrieved. If these formulas were not duly attended 

 to, the fountain of law was hermetically sealed ; and a 



