The prawn and the shrimp are ploughed in innumerable quantities from the shallow waters that lave the shore. The shrimper may be seen any day at work, pushing his little net before him. To reach the more distant sandbanks he requires a boat; but on these he captures his prey with greater facility, and richer hauls reward his labour than when he plies his putting-net close inshore. The shrimper, when he captures a sufficient quantity, proceeds to boil them; and till they undergo that process they are not edible. The shrimp is “the ‘Undine’ of the waters,” and seems possessed by some aquatic devil, it darts about with such intense velocity. Like the lobster and the crab, the prawn periodically changes its skill; and its exertions to throw off its old clothes are really as wonderful as those of its larger relatives of the lobster and crab family. There are a great many species of shrimp in addition to the common one; as, for instance, banded, spinous, sculptured, three-spined, and two-spined. Young prawns, too, are often taken in the “putting-nets” and sold for shrimps. Prawns are caught in some places in pots resembling those used for the taking of lobsters. The prawn exuviates very frequently; in fact it has no sooner recovered from one illness than it has to undergo another. Although the prawn and the shrimp are exceedingly common on the British coasts, when we consider the millions of these “sea insects,” as they have been called, which are annually consumed at the breakfast tables and in the tea-gardens of London alone (not to speak of those which are greedily devoured in our watering-places, or the few which are allowed to reach the more inland towns of the country), we cannot but wonder where they all come from, or who provides them; and the problem can only be solved by taking into account the fact that we are surrounded by hundreds of miles of a productive seabord, and that thousands of seafaring people, and others as well, make it their business to supply such luxuries to all who can pay for them. It is even found profitable to send these delicacies to England all the way from the remote fisheries of Scotland.