THE SHORES OF BRITAIN. JQ3 



body being in a bent position. The Lobster is said 

 to project itself ^thus, by a single impulse, upwards 

 of thirty feet, and to dart through the water with 

 the fleetness of a bird upon the wing. The Shrimp 

 frequents the shallows, and congregates in numerous 

 shoals, which leap from the surface, as I have often 

 seen. The capture of them is often left to the 

 children of the fishermen, who, wading in the shoal 

 water, with a net fixed at the end of a pole, take 

 them with much ease. 



Under the appellation of Shell-fish are familiarly 

 included animals having little connection with each 

 other, and still less with fishes. The Fish, the Crab, 

 and the Oyster belong, in fact, to three of the grand 

 sections into which the animal kingdom is distri- 

 buted ; and though the last two agree in being in- 

 vested with what is, in common parlance, called "a 

 shell," yet the crust of the one bears no analogy in 

 form, structure, or composition to the shell of the 

 other. Again: those animals which, like the Oyster, 

 are covered with true calcareous shells, differ greatly 

 from each other: some, as the Periwinkle and the 

 Whelk, being animals of much higher grade in the 

 scale of development than others, as the Oyster or 

 Scallop. The former crawl with ease on a broad 

 fleshy disk, as we have all seen in the case of the 

 garden Snail^ an animal closely allied to them; they 

 have a distinct head, with tentacles, jaws, and often 

 with eyes; but the latter have no power of crawling, 

 being, for the most part, confined to one spot, no 

 head, no eyes, no tentacles, and no jaws, but are 

 shut up within their two shells, which can be opened 



