MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 159 



walking backwards, while the other is engaged in teasing 

 out the hay gradually and evenly. 



The long narrow spade used for digging peat is now 

 seldom to be seen. Another implement gone out of use 

 was the push-plough, of which there is a single example 

 in Castle Rushen. This was used for breaking up hard 

 ground before ploughing, much as the grubber is at the 

 present time. Ling-drawers are still to be met with. 

 These resemble sickles, some being toothed, some plain. 

 Blunt sickles also were used for drawing gibbons out of 

 the sand. The " Lister " was a straight-pronged trident 

 used for spearing flukes. Straight-pronged iron forks, 

 or " grips," were made by the local blacksmiths for farm 

 purposes also before the introduction of the modern curved 

 steel forks. These were used also in digging gibbons (the 

 lesser sand-eel, Ammodytes tobianus). 



In old days the " Adder," or weaver, was an impor- 

 tant personage, most parishes having one or more hand- 

 looms, but now the modern mills have taken their place. 

 The old spinning-wheels also are fast disappearing. They 

 all had the " quiggal " or distaff attached to them, so that 

 the same wheel could be used either for flax or wool. 

 Flax, commonly grown in the Island until some 50 years 

 ago, when cut, was left lying for some time in water, then 

 sent to the tuck mill, " Myllin walkee," to have the skin 

 or bark torn off, after which it was combed by a " heckle " 

 into the condition of tow, when it was ready for spinning. 

 Sometimes the carding of flax would be done at home, the 

 heckles used, of which some examples may be seen in 

 Castle Rushen, being exceedingly primitive. A " swift " 

 was required for winding the balls off into hanks, which 

 were then ready for weaving into linen.* The spinning 



* See an interesting article by Miss A. M. Crellin, in Yn Lioar 

 Manninagh, Vol. II., p. 265. 



