SANDBANK FISHERIES.
THAT the long sole-backed sands, uncovered at low-water and during the greater part of the ebb, should be the site of a fishery seems at first somewhat surprising. The white, waterless sand, shining in the sun, the playground of children and basking-place of seagulls, is barren of all vegetable growth, and would seem equally unfavourable for fishes and crustacea. Yet this "arid belt" of the fringe of land and sea is the scene of many of the minor fisheries of the coast. Fish swarm over its surface when the flood sets across the sand, and when left bare and apparently void of life by the ebb-tide, it conceals beneath its surface a vast population of living creatures hidden and waiting for the return of the tide. The visitor walking over the firm, damp sands is often ignorant that a few inches beneath his feet are not only countless numbers of edible crustacea, but also shoals of fish, and that during the ebb the sandbank is not a mere inorganic heap of gritty particles, but a " sand-pie " stuffed with live eels and shell-fish, waiting in comfort and concealment for the return of the tide.
The animals of the sandbank fishery may be divided roughly into those which leave the bank and follow the ebb, and those which, in the language of the fishermen, "sand," and wait beneath the surface till the sea once more covers them. Most of the former, the dabs, plaice, and other flat-fish, with the shrimps and sand-crabs, conform exactly to the colour of the sand. This is necessary, because they lie upon its surface at all times, and this being awash with the ripples and waves of the shallow water, powders the sand over their backs and makes them invisible. When the tide covers the bank these are speared or trawled for in the ordinary way. At the ebb they retreat seawards or occasionally enter the tidal sluices as the water begins to recede, and lie in the land streams flowing into the harbours. These shallow, gentle streams, shut in automatically at high-tide and only running at the ebb, are covered at the bottom by a thin, smooth layer of the finest mud. Beneath this lies the sand, and between the two the flat- fish are concealed. When one dies "from natural causes" his bones gradually whiten in. situ, and the skeleton lies perfect and unbroken like a " preparation " in a surgical museum, with the fine grey mud between them. In time, when the mud becomes shale and the sand sandstone, the flounder will appear as one of those strangely perfect "fossil fish" which are found so unaccountably in stratified rocks,—a relic of the sandbank fishes of the later nineteenth century.
The fish which remain true to the sandbank, whether wet or dry, are the sand-sprats, the cockles, the razor-fish, and the big worms, which, though not a "fish," are the basis of many fisheries in the form of bait, and bring work and money to the bait-catchers on many parts of the coast. The sand-sprats delicate as whitebait, and even more beautiful in appearance, are the most interesting in their habits and history of the inhabitants of the bank. " Sand-eel " and "sand-sprat," the common names of the fish, give little clue to its appearance, for it resembles neither an eel nor a sprat. "Sand-lance," one of its local titles, is more appropriate, for when taken from the water or sand it lies like a straight and pointed spit of steel or silver. The fish has a painted head, the lower jaw projecting in a sharp point below the upper, and a flattened sword-like body, smooth and burnished. It haunts the sandy coasts in countless shoals, and is the principal food of the predatory fishes when coasting along the shore. At high-water the sand-lances disperse over the whole surface, of the flats. Then the cormorants fish for them, and the whiting and the pollack come in to chase them. Salmon also eat the sand-lances, and the Dutch salmon, caught in the upper tideway of the Rhine, grow fat upon them. At ebb- tide the lances gain a temporary respite from this persecution. The shoals follow the water for a certain distance, and then by some unanimous impulse every fish dives into the sand— then all disintegrated and awash—and barrows a few inches below the surface. When the water ebbs further, the upper sand subsides, and the shoal of fish, of all sizes from the length of a finger to twelve inches, lies buried. No surface-holes mark the place of their retreat, and their con- cealment is perfect.
" Sand-spratting," as the search for these buried fish is called on the Southern Coast, is not the least amusing of the minor sports of the seaside. The fish must not be followed as the tide goes down, or they take alarm and refuse to " sand " at all. But go down in the early morning to the furthest verge of the sand just as the ripples of the flood begin to roll in, and there the sand-sprats will be found. The boats and buoys lie grounded on the bank along the harbour channel like sleeping seals, the gulls are resting like chickens on the sand, lazy and unwilling to move, and the only movement on the shore is that of the sleepy fishermen wading down, basket in hand, to catch king-crabs for bait among the rocks. The only equipment needed is a five-pronged trident-like fork, fixed in a stout handle of ash. This, though resembling a trident, is an "implement," and not a weapon, used for digging, and not for impaling the fish, and with the " worming-spade " is manufactured by the long-shore blacksmith, whose business lies as much with the fishermen and boat-repairers as with the farmers and waggon- owners up country. The whereabouts of the buried shoals can only be determined by "trial and error," but the work is light and rapid, and the broad trident lifts the caked sand in great flakes. "It is a deal easier than digging potatoes," as the fishermen remark, and vastly more exciting. As the sand is turned over the flakes break in pieces, and among the fragments a shine of silver is seen. Then the sand- lances wriggle from the heaps, and the fun begins. Big fish and little fish are turned up at each dig of the fork, and the baskets may be filled in an hour until the time comes to retreat before the flood making inwards across the sand. Razor-fish, like the sand-lances, are also buried at the ebb. Their broken shells, like a razor- handle, are common upon the beach, but the living mollusc is rarely seen. As food they much surpass the cockle or mussel, but even the fishermen who make it their business to collect the latter neglect the razor-fish as food. The shell is too fragile to bear transport, and is often broken in the process of digging. A simple device for catching razor-fish for the table is to visit the sandbank at the ebb-tide, with a packet of coarse salt, and to follow the ebb at a distance of a few yards from the water. The hiding-place of the fish is then marked by little jets of sand and water, which it ejects from its burrow. If a small handful of salt be laid upon the hole and left to dissolve, the fish feels uncomfortable, and in the course of a few minutes forces its way to the surface, when the mouth of the projecting shell can be seized and the long double tube drawn out uninjured. But the great fishery of the sandbank is the cockle-harvest. Cockles have been the luxury of the poor from the Stone Age until to-day, and fortunately there seems no prospect of their decrease. It was "the son of a husbandman" whom lEsop described as cooking cookies; poor pilgrims ate them on the strand of Joppa, and brought home the shells in their hats ; and to-day they are the "poor man's oyster" in the London streets. On one occasion in late years they were eaten by Royalty in England—but the Royal personage was the Maori King, for whom they were provided as a bonne bouche at a garden party, because he had remarked that in New Zealand gentlemen ate cockles and not oysters, which were only fit for common people. But as the common people here like cockles, and plenty of them, the sandbank is valuable as a cockle-ground, and in Morecambe Bay and in the Wash the cockle-beds are immensely large, and the industry thrives. Carts and waggons are driven across the sands of the Wash to fetch in the cockles, and often the race between horses and tide is close and dangerous. Strange as it seems, the cockles, unlike the oysters, wander at times and desert their old " beds " for new ones. Near Morecambe Bay a clergyman recently complained that he had lost half of his parishioners. The cockles had deserted the fore- shore of his parish and moved across the Bay ; and the parish had moved after them.
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