SHRIMPING, MUSSELLING 



Why are some shrimps pink and others brown ? is a 

 question that has puzzled many of us in childhood. The 

 pink shrimps appear to be a sort of connecting link be- 

 tween the brown ones and prawns. The two are seldom 

 found together in great numbers ; in a neighbourhood 

 where the shrimps are brown there will also be a 

 sprinkling of the others, and vice versa. 



The prawn, apart from being much larger, is dis- 

 tinguished from the shrimp by its saw-like spine and by 

 its enormously long external antennae, which are half as 

 long again as the fish itself. A live prawn is a most 

 beautiful thing : steel-grey, marked all over with purple 

 spots and lines ; its eyes are its most extraordinary 

 feature, for they stand out like spots of flame or of the 

 most brilliantly burnished copper. In their adult con- 

 dition prawns are less fond of deep water than shrimps, 

 though a few are generally taken in the shrimp-net. 

 They rather prefer the still, clear pools among the rocks, 

 where they play and hide among the seaweed. They are 

 caught in two ways : in traps like the ordinary lobster- 

 pot on a smaller scale ; and in a sort of landing-net, made 

 by hanging a net-bag on an iron hoop fixed at the end 

 of a long pole. 



When fishermen have nothing better to do, another 

 branch of the trade is open to them whenever the weather 

 permits musselling. 



Sea-water mussels are divisible into many classes, but 

 the two best known are the common mussel and the 

 horn-mussel ; the latter differing slightly from the former 

 in shape and in its habit of digging and burrowing in 



