WHELKS, ETC. 181 
teeth placed three in a row, of which the middle 
one is three-pointed, and the outer ones hooked. 
The mantle is produced into a short siphon; the 
foot is ovate, notched in front and obtuse behind. 
Nearly a hundred species of the genus are found 
in the warmer seas, some of them of large size, 
and almost ail with a very wide-spread aperture 
and short spire. Our own common Dog-Winkle 
(Purpura lapillus) approaches more nearly the 
form of Buccinum: it is an exceedingly variable 
shell in size, colour, and sculpture; its most com- 
mon appearance is white or pale yellow, sometimes 
banded with light or dark brown, and sometimes 
wholly of a deep chocolate hue. The figure on 
page 38 will enable my readers to recognise it, 
especially as it is one of the most abundant of our 
native shells, occurring by thousands on every 
rocky shore. 
I have already described in the introductory 
chapter of this volume, the purple secretion 
possessed by this mollusk, and the mode of apply- 
ing it; the dye is common to the genus, and in a 
greater or less degree to many genera of the same 
family. 
The Dog-Winkle is to be found attached to 
rocks and stones between tide-marks, and few who 
behold it sluggishly clinging to its hold, would 
suppose that it is as ravenous and ferocious a 
tyraut among its fellow mollusks, as the lion or 
leopard among the flocks. Yet abundant evidence 
exists to show that it habitually preys upon other 
shell-fish, both univalves and bivalves. Mr. Hanley 
has “seen a Purpura devour a Periwinkle in the 
course of an afternoon, when placed in the same 
vessel of sea-water, sucking its prey as it were out 
