4 raOCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [Jan., 



how this gasteropod accomplishes its destructive work of boring 

 through the shells of oysters and clams and rasping out their soft 

 contents by means of the file-like tongue." Although this is in the 

 introduction, he does not mention again how Sycotypus bores through 

 shells and had only the "impression" that they did bore. 



Ingersoll (1884) has given the most detailed description of the food 

 and the manner of taking it that I have been able to discover. "The 

 food of the conch {Fulgur or Sycotypus)," says he, "being mainly the 

 flesh of other mollusks, its method of killing them is one of brute 

 strength, since it is unprovided with the silicious, file-like tongue by 

 means of which the small drills set at naught the shelly armor of their 

 victims. The conch is a greater savage than that. Seizing upon the 

 unfortunate oyster, unable to run away, he envelops its shell in the 

 concave under surface of his foot, and by just such muscular action 

 as you would employ in grasping an object in the palm of your fist, 

 crushes the shell into fragments and feasts at leisure on the flesh thvis 

 exposed. One planter thought one Winkle {Fulgur and Sycotypus) 

 was capable of killing a bushel of oysters in a single hour. They do 

 not confine themselves to oysters altogether, of course; any mollusk 

 or other animal sluggish or weak enough to be broken up suffers from 

 their predacity. I was told in New Jersey by an intelligent man that a 

 conch would even pull a razor clam out of its burrow and devour it. If 

 this be true the soft shell clam also falls a victim to the same marauder. 

 The Quahog is generally safe." 



I quote this because my observations and experiments unfortu- 

 nately contradict so many of these interesting statements. 



My experiments as to the kind of food were restricted to live Lamelli- 

 branchs, because I never was able to observe them eat chopped oyster 

 or chopped meat. Chopped oyster certainly stimulates them and 

 perhaps they will eat it. I cannot tell. Table I gives the results of 

 my studies at Woods Hole and Philadelphia, (x) indicates that the 

 particular bivalve was fed to the conch and eaten; (o) indicates that 

 it was fed to the conch and not eaten ; and (-) means that the particular 

 form was not supplied with the indicated food. 



Table I. 

 Sycotypus. F. carica. F. perversa. 



Mya X X - 



Venus x x 



Unsis - X - 



Modiola x - 



Mytilus X X - 



Ostrea.. .. x x x 



