is scarcely known elsewhere, so that it is often designated in books as the Paignton cockle. A right savoury bonne bouche it is, when artistically dressed. Old Dr. Turtona great authority in his day for Devonshire natural history, especially on matters relating to shells and shell-fish-says that the cottagers about Paignton well know the rednoses,' as they call the great cockles, and search for them at low spring tides, when they may be seen lying in the sand with the fringed siphons appearing just above the surface. They gather them in baskets and panniers, and after cleansing them a few hours in cold spring-water, fry the animals in a batter made of crumbs of bread. The creatures. have not changed their habits nor their habitats, for they are still to be seen in the old spots just as they were a century ago; nor have they lost their reputation; they are, indeed, promoted to the gratification of more refined palates now, for the cottagers, knowing on which side their bread is buttered, collect the sapid cockles for the fashionables of Torquay, and content themselves with

posed mud, the common cockle is sure to be found, and hundreds of men, women, and children may be seen plodding and groping over the sinking surface, with naked feet and bent backs, picking up the shell-fish by thousands, to be boiled and eaten for home consumption, or to be cried through the lanes and alleys of the neighbouring towns by stentorian boys who vociferate all day long, 'Here's your fine cockles, here! Here they are! Here they are! Twopence a quart!" It is on the north-western coast of Scotland, however, that the greatest abundance of these mollusca occurs, and there they form not a luxury but even a necessary of life to the poor semi-barbarous population. The inhabitants of these rocky regions enjoy an unenviable notoriety for being habitually dependent on this mean diet. "Where the river meets the sea at Tongue," says Macculloch, in his "Highland and Island Homes of Scotland," "there is a considerable ebb, and the long sandbanks are productive of cockles in an abundance which is almost unexampled. At that time (a year of scarcity) they presented every day at low water a singular spectacle, being crowded with men, women, and children, who were busily digging for these shell fish as long as the tide permitted. It was not unusual to see thirty or forty horses from the surrounding

country, which had been brought down for the purpose of carrying away loads of them to distances of many miles. This was a well-known season of scarcity, and, without this resource, I believe it is not too much to say that many individuals must have died for want." One of the easiest forms of collecting is from the débris, as it were, of fishermen's nets and baskets; but it is exceedingly difficult to induce trawlers to bring home any of their "rubbish." Money, that in general "makes the mare to go" in any direction you wish, seems to have lost its stimulating power when the duty to be performed, the quid pro quo, is the putting a shovelful of "rubbish" into a bucket of water instead of jerking it overboard. No, they haven't got time. You try to work on their friendship; you sit and chat with them, and think you have succeeded in worming yourself into their good graces sufficiently to induce them to undertake the not very onerous task of bringing in a tub of "rubbish." The thing is not, however, utterly hopeless. Occasionally Mr. Gosse had a tub of "rubbish " brought to him; but much more generally worthless than otherwise. The boys are sometimes more open to advances than the men, especially if the master carries his own son with him, in which case the lad has a little more opportunity to turn a penny for himself than when he is friendless. "If ever," says Gosse, "you should be disposed to try your hand on a bucket of trawler's 'rubbish,' I strongly recommend you, in the preliminary point of 'catching your hare,' to begin with the cabin-boy.

"The last basketful I overhauled made an immense heap when turned out upon a board, but was sadly disappointing upon examination. It consisted almost entirely of one or two kinds of hydroid zoophytes, and these of the commonest description. It does not follow hence, however, that an intelligent and sharp-eyed person would not have succeeded in obtaining a far greater variety; a score of species were doubtless brushed overboard when this trash was bundled into the basket; but being small, or requiring to be picked out singly, they were neglected, whereas the long and tangled threads of the Plumularia falcata could be caught up in a moment like an armful of pea-haulm in a field, its value being estimated, as usual with the uninitiated, by quantity rather than by quality, by bulk rather than variety."

Mr. Gosse found on several occasions when examining the contents of shrimpers' nets, a pretty little flat-fish, a constant inhabitant of sandy beaches and pools, and often found in company with shrimps, some of which it hardly exceeded in size, although sometimes reaching a maximum growth of four or five inches. Small as it is, it is allied to the magnificent turbot. The naturalist above mentioned took it home, and observed its habits at leisure. "In a white saucer," says he, "it was a charming little object, though rather difficult to examine, because, the instant the eye with the lens was brought near, it flounced in alarm, and often leaped out upon the table. When its fit of terror was over, however, it became still, and would allow me to push it hither and thither, merely waving the edges of its dorsal and ventral fins rapidly as it yielded to the impulse." This is the Top-knot, so called from an elongation of the dorsal fin. The little Sand Launce, with its pearly lustrous sides, is a commonly-found fish on the shore. It has a remarkable projection of the lower jaws, a kind of spade, as it were, by the aid of which it manages to scoop out a bed in the wet sand, and so lie hidden. The Lesser Weever, called by English fishermen Sting-bull, Sting-fish, and Sea-cat, because of its power of inflicting severe inflammatory

wounds, a little fish of four or five inches long, is another denizen of the sands. So also the young of the Skate. The Wrasse, the Globy, the Blenny, and many other small fish, are met with in the pools and caverns of our shores.

Of crabs, prawns, and crustaceans, of shell-fish and rock fish, and the mollusca generally, these pages have already given a sufficient account. They are even more at home in the sea than on the shore.

CHAPTER XIX.

SKETCHES OF OUR COASTS.-CORNWALL.

The Land's End-Cornwall and her Contributions to the Navy-The Great Botallack Mine-Curious Sight OutwardlyPlugging Out the Atlantic Ocean-The Roar of the Sea Heard Inside-In a Storm-The Miner's Fears-The Loggan Stone-A Foolish Lieutenant and his Little Joke-The Penalty-The once-feared Wolf Rock-Revolving Lights-Are they Advantageous to the Mariner-Smuggling in Cornwall-A Coastguardsman Smuggler-Landing 150 Kegs under the Noses of the Officers-A Cornish Fishing-town-Looe, the Ancient-The Old Bridge-Beauty of the Place from a Distance-Closer Inspection--Picturesque Streets-The Inhabitants-Looe Island and the RatsA Novel Mode of Extirpation-The Poor of Cornwall Better Off than Elsewhere-Mines and Fisheries-Working: on 'Tribute"-Profits of the Pilchard Season-Cornish Hospitality and Gratitude.

THE Land's End has a particular interest to the reader of this work, for its very name indicates a point beyond which one cannot go, except we step into the great ocean. Round the spot a certain air of mystery and interest also clings. What is this ending place like? It is the extreme western termination of one of the most rugged of England's counties, one which has produced some of her greatest men, and has always been intimately connected with the history of the sea. Cornwall has afforded more hardy sailors to the royal navy and merchant marine than any other county whatever, Devonshire, perhaps, excepted. One must remember her sparse population in making any calculation on this point. Her fishermen and miners are among the very best in the world. Some sketches therefore of Cornish coasts and coast life may be acceptable.*

One of the great features of the Land's End is the famed Botallack Mine, which stretches out thousands of feet beyond the land, and under the sea. Wilkie Collins, in an excellent description of his visit to the old mine says:-"The sight was, in its way, as striking and extraordinary as the first view of the Cheese-Wring itself. Here we beheld a scaffolding perched on a rock that rose out of the waves-there a steam-pump was at work raising gallons of water from the mine every minute, on a mere ledge of land half down the steep cliff side. Chains, pipes, conduits, protruded in all directions from the precipice; rottenlooking wooden platforms, running over deep chasms, supported great beams of timber and heavy coils of cable; crazy little boarded houses were built where gull's nests might have been found in other places. There did not appear to be a foot of level space anywhere, for any part of the works of the mine to stand upon; and yet, there they were, fulfilling all the purposes for which they had been constructed, as safely and completely, on rocks

This account is mainly derived from Wilkie Collins's "Rambles beyond Railways," and the Rev. C. A. Johns's "Week at the Lizard.”