The " Kjokken-Moddinger" of Elginshire, 89 
annually to the seaside, even though it should be but for a 
few hours, under the impression, unquestionably, that some 
benefit is thereby derived. The visitors generally return to 
their homes with some shelly trophy, to adorn their mantle- 
pieces or the sills of the window. Can this custom be the 
vestiges of the summer migration of an early ancestry ? It 
would be well if this hint were taken up, and information 
gathered as to the names, seasons, purposes, traditions, &c., 
of these maritime pilgrimages. 
There is enough yet left at Brigzes to enable one to form 
a pretty correct idea of the size of the mound there on the 
day on which it was ostracised — forsaken, by the throwing 
of the last shell. This mound, or rather these two mounds 
(for there is an intervening portion of the ground that has 
no shells), must have been of considerable extent. A rough 
measurement gives eighty by thirty yards for the larger, 
and twenty-six by thirty for the smaller portion. The 
most abundant shell is the periwinkle — the edible buckie," 
as it is provincially called. Next in order as to frequency, 
is the oyster, and magnificent " natives" they must have 
been ! No doubt, when this favourite shell-fish was served 
up at the feasts held on its margin, the bed of the Loch of 
Spynie, then an arm of the sea, was the productive dredging- 
ground. On that extensive flat, wherever canal or ditch 
has been dug, oysters are met with, seemingly on the spots 
where they lived. The oyster, as well as those who had it 
as a large item in their bill of fare, has passed away from 
our coasts. Save in some of the sheltered nooks of our 
Firth, as at Cromarty, Altirlie, and Avoch, we know not 
where a small dish of them could be procured. A similar 
account is given of the disappearance of the oyster from 
the shores of Denmark, where, as on our own coasts, it was 
formerly so abundant. As third in order, in this mound, 
is the muscle, and then the cockle. Each of these species, 
however, bears but a small proportion to either of the for- 
mer two. These four — the oyster, cockle, muscle, and peri- 
winkle, have long retained the preference they seem to have 
so early obtained as food, for they are almost the only species 
of their class that are now brought for sale to the markets 
VOL. III. M 
