CHAPTER X. 

 SHRIMPS AND PRAWNS. 



POPULARLY there are about three British species of shrimps, 

 including the Prawn ; and the reader whose knowledge of our 

 Crustacea is slight will look for a very brief chapter this time. 

 But he who has paid a little attention to this group will know 

 that we have a difficulty before us in giving anything like a 

 reasonable account of British shrimps without the chapter 

 running into a book. However, our task is greatly lightened 

 for us by the fact that many of these are to be found only in 

 deeper water than lies within the littoral zone, and therefore 

 must be excluded from our survey. By a course of proceed- 

 ing then from the known to the unknown, we would call 

 attention to the largest of the well-known trio. 



The Great Prawn (Leander serratus), which we fear is best 

 known in its brilliant red colouring, as seen on the breakfast 

 tables of the well-to-do, and in the shop of the first-class fish- 

 monger. Neither of these places offers great advantages for 

 the pursuit of natural history studies so far as the external 

 appearance of living creatures is concerned. It is in the 

 rock-pools that we must make our acquaintance with the 

 noble Prawn in all the glow and glory of life and activity. It 

 is true he then lacks the fine colour of the boiled article, but 

 he has the greater beauty with which Nature has endowed 

 him ; and when you have seen him in his native haunt you 

 will confess that we have not misused the term "noble" in 

 applying it to the bearing of the Prawn. 



Not many years ago a learned Professor wrote a book on 

 the sea-shore, and- in it stated, among many other curious 



