SHRIMPS, CRABS, AND BARNACLES 99 



prepared so as to show their natural colours in life, is 

 i exhibited in the Natural History Museum in Cromwell 

 Road. 



A curious kind of prawn (by name Althea rubra), 

 of fair size, is found under " the low-tide rocks " in the 

 Channel Islands, which not only is of a deep crimson 

 colour, but snaps his fingers at you — or rather one of 

 his fingers — or claws — when you try to catch him, mak- 

 ing a loud crack audible at ten yards distance. The 

 common big prawn, if you see him in a large vessel of 

 sea-water with the light shining through him, appears 

 very brilliantly marked with coloured bands and spots — 

 reddish-brown, blue, and yellow — which are displayed on 

 a transparent, almost colourless surface. Of course, 

 boiling turns him pale red. A common smaller species 

 of prawn when boiled is often sold as " pink shrimps," 

 and lately a deep-sea prawn — a third species — has come 

 from the Norwegian coast into the London market. 

 There are many kinds which are not abundant enough 

 to become " marketable." Prawns are at once dis- 

 tinguished from the true " brown shrimp " by having the 

 front end of the body drawn out into a sharp-toothed 

 spine, which is absent in the shrimp. Besides the 

 prawns (Palaemon and Pandalus), the shrimp (Crangon), 

 land the common lobster (Homarus), you may see in the 

 [London fish shops the large spiny lobster (Palinurus) 

 [called " langouste " by the French, and apparently 

 jreferred by them as a table delicacy to the common 

 lobster, although it has no claws. It used to be called 

 tCraw-fish " or " sea craw-fish " in London ; why, I am un- 

 ■ able to say. The name was certainly bad, as it leads to 

 confusion with the cray-fish, the fresh-water lobster of 

 British and all European rivers (there are many other kinds 

 of fresh-water lobsters in other parts of the world, as well 



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