the horses’ heads are decked with nosegays, and even the yoke of the patient ox is not without its floral honours. Once arrived on the sea-shore, not a moment is lost, for time and tide wait for no man, and first come, first served. The sickle is plied vigorously, and small heaps of the precious weed are collected and marked with a flat pebble, on which the name or initials of the proprietor are chalked. The men wade across the “cols” or natural causeways leading to the outlying rocks, and, when the tide begins to flow, hastily load the carts, or the ample panniers with which the horses are provided, and hurry off to deposit their hard-earned store above high-water mark. In the meantime the younger members of the party range along the beach, turning over the stones in search of that esteemed mollusc the “ormer” or sea-ear (_Haliotis tuberculata_) which, when well cooked--a secret only known to a native of the isles--is really a delicious morsel. Not unfrequently crabs of various kinds are turned out of their hiding places, and hurry off, holding up their formidable pincers in defiance and defence, but are soon adroitly transferred to the “_behotte_”--a small basket, narrow mouthed and flattened on one side, which hangs by a belt from the shoulder of the youth or maiden. Here and there a larger mass of rock is with difficulty raised, and a goodly sized conger-eel, disturbed from his snug retreat, glides away like a snake and endeavours to hide himself in the grass-like “_plize_” (_Zostera Marina_). A blow on the head stuns him, and he goes to join the captive ormers and crabs. Perhaps one of those hideous monsters of the deep, the cuttle fish, is dislodged. His long tentacles, armed with innumerable suckers, which attach themselves strongly to anything they touch, his parrot-like bill and large projecting eyes, staring with a fixed gaze, are calculated to inspire alarm, but the trenchant sickle makes short work of him, and his scattered limbs remain on the spot to form a meal for the crabs.