208 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



represented Morecambe as Fishermen Students in the 

 various classes held at Piel, for help in the survey of the 

 beds and in the preparation of the chart. 



In front of Morecambe, the most important areas are 

 the " Ringhole," now used for depositing the mussels 

 removed from the overcrowded beds, " Baiting Knott " 

 and " Stone Skears." These two are small banks where 

 mussels grow very rapidly and take on shells of a fine 

 uniform structure. A little beyond the West End Pier, 

 a large bank with three mussel beds is shown, the major 

 portion of this is the " Old Skear," on the top of which 

 is a hedge baulk (" old Dick Bond's ") for catching fish, 

 a structure composed of stakes driven into the ground 

 and the whole interlaced with twigs. The other two beds, 

 though small, produce fine mussels, and are known as 

 " Seldom Seen" and " Reap Skear." The three beds 

 are connected with each other by skear ground, which is 

 also suitable for growing mussels. The beds at Heysham 

 though more or less continuous have all local names. 

 Starting from the shore under the hotel there is a tract of 

 sand, and then another of stones. These lead to " Hey- 

 sham Flat," a mussel bed nearly half a mile square. The 

 westerly portion of this area is usually covered with good 

 mussels and was one of the regions thinned in April, 1905, 

 when 1,362 bags of mussels were removed to the " Ring- 

 hole " in three days. There is a hedge baulk (" Fell's ") 

 on the top of the bank. A large boulder of granite many 

 tons in weight lies on the middle of the flat, and on the 

 South side there are a number of small boulders locally 

 known as the "freestones." Attached to "Heysham 

 Flat" arc two more beds known as "Knott End" and 

 " Whelk Hill " Skears. " Knott End Skear " is about 

 one quarter of a mile square, and is covered with a vast 

 number of mussels. In six days during the trans- 



