MOLLUSCA.- 225 
the largest of the British turbinated shells, is frequently 
dredged up with oysters, and, according to Pennant, “ is 
eaten by the poor, but oftener used for baits for cod, and 
ray.” It is probably the same species which is noticed by 
the Rev. William Fraser, in his view of the Parish of Gigha 
and Cara in Argyleshire, vol. viii. p. 48, of the Statistical 
Account of Scotland. He says it is a large white welk call- 
ed buckie or dog-welk, and used as a bait for cod. The 
method of obtaining these shells for bait being ingenious, 
and making us acquainted at the same time with several 
new habits of the animal, we shall here insert it. ‘“ At the 
beginning of the fishing (says Mr. Fraser) a dog is killed 
and singed, and the flesh, after rotting a little, is cut 
into small pieces, and put into creels or baskets made of 
hazel-wands for the purpose. These creels are sunk by 
means of stones thrown into them. The flesh of the dog, 
in its putrid state, is said to attract the welk, which crawls 
up round the sides of the basket, and getting in at the top, 
cannot get out again, owing to the shape of it, which is 
something like that of the wire mouse-trap. After the first 
day’s fishing, the heads and entrails of the cod, with skate 
and dog-fish, are put into the creels, which are visited every 
day, the welks taken out, and fresh bait of the same kind 
put in, there being no more occasion for dog’s flesh.” ‘The 
Buccinum undatum, and the Purpura lapillus are also em- 
ployed as bait, and in years of scarcity as food. 
This list of culinary shell-fish is far from complete, even 
in so far as it is a British list. ‘The uses of these mollus- 
cous animals have seldom been taken notice of by concho- 
logists since the days of Schonvelde, more attention having 
been directed to the formation of new systems of arrange- 
