8 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



been covered by the sea for some hours, and soon 

 their baskets are filled with cockles, razor-fishes, and 

 venuses, which although less delicate, are more nou- 

 rishing than oysters ; besides these, there is also the 

 sand-eel (Ammodytes tobianus et A. lancea), a little 

 fish which is held in high esteem, but which is not as 

 easily captured as the shell-fish, for it loves to hide 

 itself under the sand, where it moves about with 

 marvellous agility. During this time the young girls 

 are dropping their pocket-like nets into the pools, 

 which have been left by the retiring tide, busily em- 

 ployed in collecting shrimps, or in catching some 

 lobster or crab, or perchance, even some stray shore- 

 fish, which has been arrested before it could regain 

 its distant place of retreat. Others, armed with a 

 stick, terminating in a strong hook, scrape the sand 

 below the stones and hollows of the rock, and from 

 time to time draw forth a conger -eel with glistening 

 skin, or some cuttle-fish or calamary, which vainly 

 attempts to escape by shrouding itself in a cloud 

 of ink. The children in the meantime gather from 

 the rocks limpets, periwinkles, whelks, roaring 

 buckies, ormers, or mussels, which hang clustering 

 together like bunches of grapes, suspended by the 

 threads of the byssus, which the animal weaves for 

 itself. For two or three hours the beach is full of 

 life and activity, whilst a whole population pours 

 forth to seek its daily food ; but soon the waves 

 return towards the shore, the tide rises, and all 

 hasten homeward, certain that the sea will replace 

 the bounteous gifts which it is taking from them, 

 and that in a few hours they may come forth again 



