l68 BY THE DEEP SEA. 



those of the Prawn's being chelate. The Shrimp's nippers 

 have not got the well-formed moveable finger and fixed thumb 

 of the Prawn, but a moveable finger and a little stump upon 

 which it folds down. I do not pretend that it is not as 

 efficient for the Shrimp's use as the better-looking contrivance 

 of the Prawn. The plates of the tail-fan, too, are narrower 

 than those of the Prawn, but the swimming feet are longer. 



Now these two things would lead us to suppose that the 

 Shrimp depends less on jumping back from danger than on 

 swimming, and this is true. If the Shrimp suspects harm he 

 sinks upon the sand, and setting his swimming feet rapidly to 

 work they " kick up such a dust " in the water that he is 

 hidden in a cloud of fine sand, which as quickly settles down 

 and partially buries him sufficiently so with his sandy hue to 

 effectually hide him. Upon those swimming feet the female 

 carries her eggs. From the fact that shrimps may be found 

 laden with these eggs at almost all seasons, it would appear 

 that they have no special breeding time; and this fact 

 probably accounts for the endless supply of them. In 

 common with most other small Crustacea they are constantly 

 preyed upon by fishes, and we know something of the 

 enormous mortality among them caused by man, when we 

 think of the heaps in the fishmongers' shops and in the 

 baskets of the itinerant vendors in towns. But the united 

 efforts of man and fish do not appear to make them at all 

 scarce. 



There are quite a multitude of distinct species of British 

 shrimps, but many of them keep away from the shore and are 

 only caught in the dredge or the trawl. Some others swarm 

 after the bait in lobster pots, though the lobster catcher does 

 not want them, and does not even dignify them with a name 

 scarcely notices their existence, in fact. There remain, how- 

 ever, several species to which I must call attention, even 

 though my readers may have expected me to have exhausted 

 the list long before this. 



