LITTORINA. 371 



undermentioned localities are suspicious : — Nice (Kisso, 

 and "subfossile"); Palermo (Philippi, who however 

 doubted this species being indigenous to Sicily); and 

 Algiers (Weinkauff). 



The old English name of " periwincle " is supposed 

 to have been a corruption of petty winkle or wilk. 

 Lister savs that the Scarborough fishermen called them 

 cc couvins " ; and he adds that they were much sought 

 after by the Flemings. According to Dale, they were 

 called in Suffolk " pinpatches/'' The ancient vernacular 

 names for them were in Swedish a kupunge," in French 

 " bigourneau," " vignot," or " vignette/'' and in the Bre- 

 ton dialect " vrelin " or u brelin." Throughout Shet- 

 land they are known as " wilks.'" In Strom's time th 

 Scandinavian peasants used to believe that, whenever 

 these shell-fish crept far up the rocks, it indicated a 

 storm from the south. The habits and anatomy of the 

 common periwinkle, and of some other marine testa- 

 ceous mollusca, were carefully described by the late 

 Mr. Osier in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' for 1832. 

 With respect to the phytophagous kinds, he states that 

 they have three distinct modes of feeding. " They 

 browse with opposite horizontal jaws — they rasp their 

 food with an armed tongue, stretched over an elastic 

 and moveable support — or they gorge it entire. Tro- 

 chus crassus [T. lineatus] is a convenient example of 

 the first, Turbo littoreus [L. litorea] of the second, and 

 Patella vulgata of the third/' With respect to the 

 tongue of L. litorea (" a flat strap-shaped organ and 

 more than two inches long") he observes, " It presents 

 three longitudinal ranges of teeth, which recline back- 

 wards, and are set like scales, with very little elevation 

 of their edges. In the two outer rows the teeth are 

 single, irregularly crescentic in shape, and set by their 



