Abstract
Under this title Mr. A. Laurence Wells has written a long and comprehensive account of this once important industry of the Thames Estuary (Southend Standard, Dec. 29, 1932, Jan. 5 and 12, 1933). Unfortunately, shrimping at Leigh has steadily dwindled since the beginning of this century. From six boats in 1832, the numbers rose to a hundred in 1850 and two hundred in 1875, dropping from 1905 to the present time, when there are only sixteen shrimpers among the forty boats engaged in fishing activities. These records of a vanishing industry are well worth preserving and Mr. Wells with the help of the manuscript notes now safely preserved in the Southend Museum made by the late Dr. James Murie gives us a most interesting survey both historical and biological. The term ‘shrimp’ embraces several species which are all described and differentiated. Thus from this district we have the common ‘brown shrimp’, the original shrimp of commerce, at first the only kind fished; the ‘banded shrimp’, the ‘yellow shrimp’ and the ‘channelled shrimp’. Besides these true shrimps there is the ‘pink shrimp’ which, though not a prawn, is prawn-like, and four species of real prawns. Finally, there is Nika edulis, the so-called ‘Risso's shrimp’ which, although rather rare, is very good to eat. Each of these has its own individual habitat. Their life-histories are different and the fisherman knows a great deal about them which is not known to the general naturalist. There is much valuable information in this series of articles which all interested would do well to study.
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The Shrimp Industry of Leigh-on-Sea. Nature 131, 270 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131270b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131270b0