CHAPTEE XIII. 



OUE SHELL-FISH FISHERIES, 



Productive Power of Shell-Fisi — ^Varieties of the Crustacean Family — 

 Study of the Minor Shell-Fishes — Demand for Shell-Fish — Lobsters — 

 A Lohster Store-Pond described — Natural History of the Lobster 

 and other Crustacea — March of the Laud-Crabs — Prawns and Shrimps, 

 how they are caught and cured — A Mussel-Farm — How to grow bait. 



Shell-fish is the popular name bestowed by unscientific 

 persons on the Crustacea and MoUusca, and no other designation 

 could so well cover the multitudinous variety of forms which 

 are embraced in these extensive divisions of the animal kingdom. 

 Fanciful disquisitions on shell-fish and on marine zoology have 

 been intruded on the public of late tiU they have become 

 somewhat tiresome; but as our knowledge of the natural 

 history of all kinds of sea animals, and particularly of oysters, 

 lobsters, crabs, etc., is decidedly on the increase, there is yet 

 room for all that I have to say on the subject of these dainties ; 

 and there are stUl unexplored wonders of animal life in the 

 fathomless sea that deserve the deepest study. 



The economic and productive phases of our sheU-fish 

 fisheries have never yet, in my opinion, been suflSciently dis- 

 cussed; and when I state that the power of multiplication 

 possessed by all kinds of Crustacea and MoUusca is even greater, 

 if that be possible, than that possessed by finned fishes, it wiU 

 be obvious that there is much in their natural history that 

 must prove interesting even to the most general reader. Each 

 oyster, as we have seen, gives birth to almost incredible 

 quantities of young. Lobsters also have an amazing fecundity, 

 and yield an immense number of eggs — each female producing 

 from twelve to twenty thousand in a season ; and the crab is 

 likewise most prolific. I lately purchased a crab weighing 

 within an ounce of two pounds, and it contained a mass of 



