THE SHORES OF BRITAIN. 103 
body being in a bent position. The Lobster is said 
to project itself thus, by a single impulse, upwards 
of thirty feet, and to dart through the water with 
the fleetness of a bird upon the wing. The Shrimp 
frequents the shallows, and congregates in numerous 
shoals, which leap from the surface, as I have often 
seen. The capture of them is often left to the 
children of the fishermen, who, wading in the shoal 
water, with a net fixed at the end of a pole, take 
them with much ease. 
Under the appellation of Shell-jish are familiarly 
included animals having little connection with each 
other, and still less with fishes. The Fish, the Crab, 
and the Oyster belong, in fact, to three of the grand 
sections into which the animal kingdom is distri- 
buted; and though the last two agree in being in- 
vested with what is, in common parlance, called “a 
shell,” yet the crust of the one bears no analogy in 
form, structure, or composition to the shell of the 
other. Again: those animals which, like the Oyster, 
are covered with true calcareous shells, differ greatly 
from each other: some, as the Periwinkle and the 
Whelk, being animals of much higher grade in the 
scale of development than others, as the Oyster or 
Scallop. The former crawl with ease on a broad 
fleshy disk, as we have all seen in the case of the 
garden Snail, an animal closely allied to them; they 
have a distinct head, with tentacles, jaws, and often 
with eyes; but the latter have no power of crawling, 
being, for the most part, confined to one spot, no 
head, no eyes, no tentacles, and no jaws, but are 
shut up within their two shells, which can be opened 
