SHRIMPING, MUSSELLING 



slightly palpitating mass, speckled with the dark green, 

 pink, red, or white bodies of crabs of all sorts and sizes. 

 Here and there is a something that brings a moment's 

 pleasure to the eyes of the men : a good plump sole or 

 two, for which a private buyer will probably give fifty 

 cents apiece; perhaps even a turbot, the sale of which 

 will keep the crew in tobacco for close on a week ; perhaps 

 a handful of prawns. 



But looking at them will not sort the fish. Here 

 begins the really hard work; shrimps, and nothing but 

 shrimps, must go into the boiling-copper, and no genius 

 has yet arisen to separate them from the rubbish by other 

 means than going down on the hands and knees and 

 picking out good from no good. In warm weather this 

 part of the work is troublesome enough; but try it in 

 winter with the rain or sleet beating in your face, and 

 your hands aching with cold. Aching is a very mild 

 term ; I have seen stalwart fellows, who have experi- 

 enced all the terrors of Antarctic and Iceland weather, 

 almost cry with the cold in their fingers, while en- 

 gaged in shrimp-sorting within thirty miles of the 

 English coast. 



But to work ; and go gingerly, for there be crabs 

 about; not one of them big enough to be eaten, but 

 literally thousands that are prepared to eat as much of 

 you as you feel disposed to let them. Here is one nasty 

 little wretch the " fliker " or fly-crab the men call it 

 no bigger than a five-shilling piece, that will make a dead 

 set at you and bite to the bone. Smash him with your 

 boot or a stone, for he devours the fish and is no good 



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