CRUSTACEANS 



When Robert Surtees, of Mainsforth, F.S.A., published The History 

 and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham between eighty and ninety 

 years ago, he gave not the smallest consideration to carcinology. The 

 most direct reference that he makes to the existence of crustaceans is to be 

 found in his third volume, where he describes ' the providential escape of 

 a shrimper,' who ' was pursuing his occupation on the sand island in the 

 Tees.' ' His situation in the river was two miles from the Durham 

 coast, and three from Yorkshire in the midst of the Tees Estuary, with 

 the wide ocean full in front at the river mouth.' ^ The inference is in- 

 evitable that a shrimper would never have been pursuing his avocation 

 in Durham waters without the expectation of catching Durham shrimps. 

 From other remarks made by Surtees in the course of his history it is 

 easy to deduce that sundry remarkable crustaceans, quite distinct from 

 the commercial kinds, have at times visited the county. Notice will be 

 taken of these under the appropriate heads of classification. 



Surtees informs us that 'the County of Durham arose gradually out 

 of Northumberland (a term which originally included everything North 

 of the Humber), together with the increasing patrimony of the Church; 

 and, besides the main body of the County, lying betwixt Tyne, Tees, 

 and Darwent, includes several scattered members of that Patrimony : 

 I. Norhamshire and Islandshire, including Holy Island, and the Fame 

 Isles, and a portion of the mainland extending from the Tweed North 

 and North-west, to the sea on the East, and separated from Northumber- 

 land on the South partly by the course of the Till, and partly by an 

 imaginary line. 2. IBedlingtonshire, lying in the heart of Northumber- 

 land, betwixt the rivers Blyth and Wansbeck. These are usually termed 

 the North Bishopric, and are included in Chester Ward. 3. The 

 insulated territory of Crake in the wapentake of Bulmer in Yorkshire, 

 which is considered as parcel of Stockton Ward.' ' However little it 

 could have been foreseen by monks and prelates, the ecclesiastical history 

 of the county is not without its bearing upon the present chapter, and 

 for all the ecclesiastics knew of the matter the bcarintr mii^ht have been 

 more important than it actually is. At a time when religion and law 

 combined to enjoin upon the whole community the use of fish as a 

 necessary element of diet, the unlettered laity and learned churchmen 

 were alike unconcerned about the food on which fishes themselves are 

 nourished. But there is now reason to believe that fishes eat with 



' Surtcu, Uiit. 0/ Dur., iii. 141 (1823). ' Op. cit., i. pt. ii. p. iii. (1816). 



150 



