435 
Crayfish. 
Crayfish, according to Harrison, were found plenti¬ 
fully in streams and small rivers. Thomas 
Hyil, in his Art of Gardening , 1593, quotes Crayfish - 
from Democritus a strange use for these little creatures: 
ten sea or river crevises are to be put into a covered 
vessel full of water, which is to be set out in the sun for 
ten days, the seeds of plants are to be soaked in this 
mixture for eight days, and afterwards sown; and— 
“ after the yong plants of those seeds he sprung up, they will not 
onely drive cattle and other small beasts from the eating of them, but 
all other creeping things from the gnawing of them.” (Page 23.) 
Describing the river Severn and its produce, Drayton 
writes:— 
•“ The dainty gudgeon, loche, the minnow, and the bleake, 
Since they but little are, I little need to speak 
Of them, nor doth it fit me much of those to reck, 
Which every where are found in every little beck; 
ISTor of the crayfish here, which creeps along my stones, 
From all the rest alone, whose shell is all his bones.” 
(.PolyoTbion , song xxvi.) 
The crevis, or cray-fish, was a favourite dish. It was 
generally minced fine, and served cold with vinegar, 
cinnamon, and ginger. Handle Holme gives, as the 
various names under which the crayfish was known, “ a 
crevice, first a spron frey, then a shrimp, then a sprawn, 
and when it is large then called a crevice.” 
“ Shrimps,” writes Muffett, “ are of two sorts; the one crook- 
backed, the other strait-backed : the first sort is called 
of Frenchmen caramots de la sante , healthful shrimps; Shrimp, 
because they recover sick and consumed persons ; of all 
other they are most; nimble, witty, and skipping, and of best juice. . . . 
There is a great kind of shrimps, which are called prawnes in English, 
and crangones by Rondeletius, highly prized in hectick fevers and 
consumptions; but the crookbackt shrimp far surpasseth them for that 
purpose.” (. Healths Improvement, p. 168.) 
Shakspeare uses the word shrimp to denote some- 
