FOOD FISHES 53 



The Bristol Channel is especially celebrated for ordinary 

 eels, but the gigantic Conger, which sometimes measures as 

 much as ten feet, inhabits the rocky coasts of Cornwall, where 

 it is caught at night by long lines baited with pilchards, and 

 brought to Plymouth. 



Lobsters and crabs, and prawns and shrimps, belong to the 

 order of Crustaceans, so called because their body is encased 

 in a hard shell or crust. This shell does not increase in size 

 with the growth of its owner, and therefore every year it has 

 to be cast off and a new one formed. 



LOBSTERS inhabit rocky pools, and are caught in the 

 greatest numbers off the north-west of Scotland, and Ireland, 

 and on the coasts of Newfoundland, where tinned lobster 

 now forms an important article of export. 



Crabs and prawns and shrimps are found on all our sandy 

 beaches, and are especially plentiful in the Wash on the east 

 coast. 



Both lobsters and crabs are caught in wicker baskets 

 called creels. These have rounded sloping sides leading up 

 to a hole in the top, so that, once the animals crawl in, escape 

 is impossible. 



OYSTERS belong to the class of lower animals called Molluscs, 

 a word which means soft, for though the shell which encloses 

 them is hard, their bodies inside are merely a soft mass of 

 flesh. They live in the mud of estuaries or in the shallow 

 waters of the coast, attached by their flat shell to some 

 rock, and feeding on what the tide brings them : the micro- 

 scopic larvae of tiny marine creatures, the spores of seaweeds, 

 and the minute plants which float about in the sea, all these 

 being taken in with the water breathed by their gills. 



We have always been famous for our oysters ; even in 

 the time of the Romans they were exported to Rome and 

 there fattened up to tempt the dainty palates of wealthy 

 epicures. At the present time the beds of Whitstable and 

 those of the Colne and Blackwater estuaries are the most 

 productive. 



