A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



nets may be dragged by the same boat at the 

 same time, and the South port boats may even 

 employ four bow-nets, one being over each quarter, 

 and one from each of two booms carried from 

 the bows. The Morecambe boats carry two 

 of these bow-nets, and such a boat, carrying 

 perhaps a mainsail, topsail, foresail, and jib, may 

 oe managed by one man, who will work these 

 sails, ' shoot,' and haul his two nets all unaided — 

 a fact which speaks volumes for the skill of 

 Lancashire fishermen. The shrimps on being 

 landed may be sent fresh to the market or they 

 may be hawked in the neighbourhood, or they 

 may be sent to the ' potters ' to be prepared for 

 the market. In the latter case they are shelled 

 by women — that i;, the soft muscles of the tail 

 are separated from the hard carapace — the 

 shrimps having previously been boiled — and 

 they are then cooked with butter, put up in 

 shallow pots and sent to the market. This is 

 the legitimate way in which potted shrimps are 

 prepared — it is the ordinary method in use at 

 Morecambe, and to a much less extent at 

 Southport — but the great bulk of 'Southport- 

 potted shrimps' are prepared for the market by 

 a more elaborate process. At the present time 

 a considerable proportion of the shrimps landed 

 .-It that port are at once ' pickled ' in boracic 

 acid brine until required for potting. There is 

 also a large trade with Holland in boracic- 

 preserv'ed shrimps which come to Southport to 

 be potted for the market, and in this case I liave 

 been assured that these animals may have been 

 in boracic brine for — in some cases — nine months 

 before being potted for the market. 



The great bulk of shrimps landed in Lan- 

 cashire are caught either by the shrimp trawl or 

 by the bow-net, but there is also a considerable 

 proportion which is caught by ' hose-nets ' or by 

 ' power-nets.' Hose-nets are long cylindrical 

 nets about one or two feet in diameter which 

 are kept open by rings and are set on the sands 

 at low water. The tide runs through these 

 nets carrying the shrimps into the latter, and 

 once in the nets the crustaceans are pre- 

 vented from escaping by means of ' pockets ' 

 or valves of netting. The ' power ' net is a 

 purse-net which is stretched on a semicircular 

 frame of wood, the radius of which is about 

 2i or 3 ft-, and which forms the mouth of the 

 net. A long handle is attached to this con- 

 trivance, and the man working it wades in the 

 water and scrapes the sea-bottom with the net. 

 At intervals he empties its contents into a basket 

 which he carries on his back. 



In all these forms of shrimp fishing a very 

 considerable quantity of small edible fishes is of 

 necessity destroyed. Wherever shrimps are found 

 there are generally large quantities of small 

 fishes, and the action of the fishing apparatus is 

 such as to capture these fishes at the same time 

 as the shrimp. The amount of these small 



fishes captured is sometimes very considerable. 

 In one haul with a shrimp trawl which I saw 

 myself, for instance, there were captured 20 

 quarts of shrimps, 896 dabs, 265 plaice, 257 

 soles, 285 whiting, 18 skates and rays, and a 

 miscellaneous mass of invertebrates and inedible 

 fishes. One cannot help being struck with the 

 idea that an incredible amount of destruction 

 must accompany shrimp fishing as it is carried 

 on on the Lancashire coasts, but he must never- 

 theless bear in mind that this destruction is not 

 necessarily destructive of the supply of fish on 

 the fishing grounds. 



Nothing can seem more consonant to reason, or more 

 necessary a priori than that the supply of any kind of 

 fish should be permanently diminished by this great 

 and constant destruction of breeding fish, or of their 

 young fry ; and yet nothing is more certain that, in 

 many cases, this apparent necessity does not exist.' 



The whole question of the destruction of im- 

 mature fish is an exceedingly complex one, and 

 I cannot attempt its discussion here. 



Prawning. — The true prawn {Palaemon) 

 hardly exists along the Lancashire coasts, and 

 the animal known locally by that name and the 

 aliases ' shank,' ' red shrimp,' or ' Fleetwood 

 prawn ' is the creature known properly by the 

 scientific name of Pandalus annulicornis. It is 

 fished for by second-class boats in the territorial 

 waters off Fleetwood. These boats employ a 

 trawl-net which is very like that used by the 

 shrimp-trawlers, but since the prawn usually 

 inhabits grounds which are rather ' rough ' on 

 account of the presence of stones, the foot-rope 

 is much thicker than the corresponding rope in 

 the proper shrimp-trawl — being wrapped round 

 transversely with smaller rope so as to increase 

 its diameter. The quantity of prawns landed 

 in Lancashire is much less than that of shrimps. 



Cockling. — The cockle industry of Lancashire 

 is of very great importance, the cockle beds in 

 the territorial waters there being of greater 

 extent than those in any other county sea-area 

 in England. Practically the whole of the 

 sands in Morecambe Bay form an area over 

 the greater part of which cockle beds are 

 distributed. Similar cockle-bearing sands are to 

 be found off the estuary of the Ribble, on the 

 sands along the Wallasey shore, and on the sands 

 on the Lancashire shore from Crosby to Formby 

 Point. Similar cockle-bearing sands occur in 

 the estuary of the Dee, though the latter are not 

 fished to the same extent as those of Lancashire. 

 Altogether there are not much less than 

 100 square miles of sands ofF the coasts of 

 Lancashire alone, over which cockle fishing is 

 almost always going on. The fishing is rather 

 irregular, being least during the months of June 



■ Huxley in Rep. of Royal Com. on Sea Fiihenes, 

 1866. 



410 



