An elegant creature is the common prawn, or rock-shrimp, as the
fishermen designate him, by way of distinction from another sapid
crustacean that inhabits these shores. His armour of proof, composed
of plates that slide so smoothly one under another, sustains the most
lustrous polish, and is ever subject to the animal’s efforts to keep
it so; for, whenever he has a moment’s leisure from more pressing
avocations, he is constantly engaged in cleaning it with the brushes
which those slender fore-limbs of his carry. Like a true soldier, like
a knight of chivalry, the Prawn lives, eats, sleeps in armour. How
completely is his body encased in defensive mail; and he carries his
tempered weapon too. Look at the serrate sword which he always points
at the foe whom he faces! Who would rashly provoke such a weapon as
this? Stiff and firm in substance, long, pointed, two-edged, keen on
both edges, curved sabre-like, and cut into acute teeth; it does seem
a most formidable affair: and yet, truth to tell, I do not know what
use the owner makes of it. Though I have been for many years in the
practice of keeping these elegant animals in my aquaria, I have never
seen one smite a foe with his two-edged sword. Perhaps like the cane
over the looking-glass in a nursery, its mere presence is sufficient to
keep in awe encroaching enemies, whose hearts sink when they behold the
sharp-toothed weapon.
Exquisitely painted is the Prawn. His ground colour is semi-pellucid
olive-grey, on which transverse lines of black are drawn; and specks
and dashes of sparkling white, symmetrically arranged and well defined,
are scattered here and there, especially upon the broad swimming plates
that serve as his principal instruments of locomotion. His limbs, too,
are ringed with blue and orange, a felicitous combination!
I have just alluded to the tail as a motive power. It is a very curious
organ, consisting of five plates, so hinged that they can play over
each other, or be spread out in shape of a fan, and each plate beset
on its edges with a most delicate fringe of stiff bristles. To see its
use, you have only to approach the animal. He instantly darts away with
force; all the while, however, keeping his face to the foe, as becomes
a soldier so armed. Now this retrocessive power is his great _cheval de
bataille_. When gently exploring, he crawls among the weeds on the tips
of his long feet; when swimming at ease, he glides gracefully along by
the rapid paddling of the false feet, of which he carries five pairs
beneath his abdomen. But when alarmed, he forcibly throws forward this
plated tail, expanded to the utmost, bending the last joints of the
body from the hump on his back, and thus strikes a powerful forward
blow on the water, by the impact of which the whole prawn is jerked
backward to a distance of several inches.
But he is gone; and it were useless to look for him any more in this
wilderness of sea-weeds, and amid the cavernous recesses of those rocky
ledges, where he enjoys ample means of retreat and concealment. For,
even if you did catch a momentary glimpse of him again, it would be
only as he darts from one shelter to another, and he would presently be
far out of your reach in the obscurity of some inexplorable hole.
Let us turn to the beach and follow the water’s edge. Let us see
what this fisherman is so busy about, and what that horse is doing
as he paces backward and forward belly-deep in the sea, from one end
of the beach to the other, then retracing his steps, as if he were
ploughing the shallows. And why does the fisherman watch the horse so
attentively? Hark! what says he? He shouts to the diminutive urchin
that rides the horse to come in; and now he eagerly goes down to the
edge of the sea, as the beast and his little rider come ashore. We will
go and see.