Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/211

Rh sufficiently interested in the subject as they had been in the matter of fishes; although without a doubt it was the chances of earning a little spending money that induced them rather than any other. Certain circumstances (chiefly in connection with the vulgar "struggle for existence") drew me away from the pursuit of the Crustaceans after 1892, or the list might have been more extensive. I am hoping in 1898 to again pursue the subject in conjunction with the Sessile-eyed Crustaceans. Remarkably few specimens, alive or dead, have turned up at the high-water mark, or had they, the Sandhoppers (Talitrus locusta), which abound in the tidal refuse, had made short work of them. The eighty shrimp-boats, each carrying twelve-foot-beamed dredges, covering when in action and working several hours daily a net-frontage of nearly 700 yards, are responsible for the majority of the "finds" here recorded. And it will be a matter for surprise that the list is such a small one, seeing that the myriads of sizeable Shrimps and Æsop's Prawns have each to pass through the shrimpers' fingers; the smaller are, however, riddled back into the water before sorting.

The numbers of the commoner species frequenting the roadstead must be prodigious. Shrimping begins with the first open days of spring, and ends in September or early in October, when some of the men find employment in malthouses or on the Fishwharf. Day after day good catches generally are made. In March, half a peck is thought an average catch. These are "Brown" Shrimps (Crangon vulgaris). I have counted at that season 400 Shrimps to the pint. They run larger in the finer months, and a dozen pecks is a frequent "take." In summer the "Pink" Shrimps or Æsop's Prawns (Pandalus annulicornis) come into the shallows and are more eagerly sought. On certain bottoms, known as the " rough grounds," also as "pink grounds," the shrimpers meet more abundantly with the species; this rough bottom appears to be hard chalky ground, with Fuci and colonies of Sabella and allied forms, which latter, the shrimpers affirin, are a favourirte food of the "pinks."

Fishes of all kinds devour myriads of Shrimps: Pogges, Bullheads, Weevers, and many others, being often surcharged with them; even the Gobies are sometimes found quite obese, having swallowed Shrimps apparently half as big as themselves.