128 
HISTOBY OF BRITISH CRUSTACEA. 
but never far from land. The Prawn is usually taken with 
a bag-net suspended from a circular ring of iron at the 
end of a pole. It is a tempting bait for most sea-fishes. 
Cornish Pauna/ p. 80 .) 
Prom one of Mr. Gosseks delightful chapters in his 
'Naturalist's Rambles on the Devonshire Coast/* we extract 
a few descriptive sentences of the appearance of the Prawn 
when gliding gracefully along in its native haunts, and not 
as we generally see it, boiled, on a plate. “ The tail-fans 
are wddely dilated, rendering conspicuous the contrasted 
colours with which they are painted ; the jaws are ex- 
panded, the feet hanging loosely beneath. Now one rises 
to the surface almost perpendicularly ; then glides down 
towards the bottom, sweeping up again in a graceful curve. 
Now he examines the weeds, then shoots under the dark 
angles of the rock. . . . This Prawn, that comes to our 
tables decked out and penetrated, as it were, with a delicate 
pellucid rose-colour, beautiful as he is then, is far more 
beautiful when just netted from the bottom, or from the 
overhanging weed-grown side of some dark pool. . . . 
There he is, . . . with extended eyes, antennse stretching 
perpendicularly upwards, claws held out divergently, with 
* P. 39. 
