AND LINE-FISHING 



ing them to the effect that their dealer can take no more 

 shrimps for another three days. 



A shrimp-boiler has one trouble in life, for which the 

 young skate and other small fry are responsible. Many 

 dark-skinned fish, in their baby form, are the exact length 

 and colour of shrimps, and, however carefully sorted the 

 fish may have been, several of these are sure to appear 

 among those set aside for boiling. Before these are 

 thrown into the copper they are closely inspected again, 

 and even then a score of trespassers will appear in the 

 boiling water, time after time deluding the boiler into 

 the belief that they are half-cooked shrimps. 



As the sieve fills, the shrimps are taken out and put 

 into bags ; and so the day goes on till eighty or a hun- 

 dred or more gallons are thus stowed away, and the boat 

 heads for home with the returning tide. The shrimps 

 will be taken ashore, measured into barrels, canvased 

 down, and sent away by cart or train. 



Is there much danger in shrimping ? A certain amount, 

 weather apart, even; because, when men are working a 

 whole tide, it is often necessary to do some of the fishing 

 in the half-light of morning or evening, and it is then 

 that accidents take place. At such a time a man may be 

 unwittingly standing in the way of a warp which he can 

 scarcely see, while the net is being shot, and may find 

 himself entangled in it suddenly and dragged overboard 

 almost before he can cry out. In this way a certain 

 number of lives are lost every year, for the bulk of the 

 work being done by daylight, few boats ever trouble to 

 carry a lamp. 



D 49 



