SHRIMPING, MUSSELLING 



on the spot. Most boats carry a dredge, attached to 

 a very long warp, which, as soon as they have shortened 

 sail, they throw over once or twice to test the bottom. 

 If the result of the trial be satisfactory, the net is lowered 

 as described in Chapter III, and in the same manner is 

 towed slowly along the sand. 



As soon as the net has been shot, preparations are 

 made for the shrimp-boiling, which almost invariably is 

 done on board. When the fore-hatch is taken up we see, 

 below, an ordinary washing-copper with a good-sized 

 grate under it, and, in it, the water and the waste 

 shrimps from yesterday's boiling. The water is baled 

 out and flung overboard, but not the shrimps. It may 

 be superstition or it may be scientific fact, but all 

 shrimpers are of opinion that boiled shrimps are poison- 

 ous to their own kind, and that the living fish have no 

 instinct to warn them of that fact. Therefore any that 

 are left over (the "cleanings 11 ) are made into a small 

 parcel to be thrown away when the men come ashore. 



The copper being filled with sea-water to which several 

 generous handfuls of salt have been added, the fire is lit, 

 and, by the time the men are ready for it, the copper will 

 be boiling. Next the "zeef 11 (anglice, "strainer") is 

 handed out and laid slanting from the bulwarks to the 

 deck, to leeward ; it is an oblong wooden frame about 

 six feet by three, with a wire bottom, just such as brick- 

 layers 1 labourers use for screening sand. 



The hauling up of a shrimp-net is a less arduous un- 

 dertaking than the raising of a trawl, though it is quite 

 heavy enough to keep four men well employed for several 



44 



