IN THE SEA 179 



can find its shell. It is as though a shell had been 

 made something like a small whelk shell, of good 

 thick material, and then had been scored both 

 ways while it was soft, cutting it all over into 

 diamonds or lozenges like a golf ball. This shell 

 has a deep siphon-notch, showing with reasonable 

 probability that its inhabitant is a carnivore. But 

 how did such a dollop of slime gain entrance to 

 the whelk's shell ? 



As we have seen, the shell of a whelk is hard 

 and almost continuous, the operculum making it 

 entirely so when the animal is within. There is 

 no way but to bore a hole through the shell, and this 

 the hungry dog-whelk, Nassa reticulata, proceeds 

 to do. Protruding its snout, it puts it against 

 the shell of the whelk and waits. The slightly 

 acid moisture acts on the lime as we may find 

 a drop of lemon juice would do, dissolving it or 

 splitting it up into its airy constituents and letting 

 the robber's snout through. The dog-whelk then 

 pushes in its tongue and scratches out the flesh in 

 morsels. 



More surprises in this dollop of slime. A tongue 

 that will scratch off flesh as a wild-rose bramble 

 would can scarcely be made of slime. Reader, 

 you may have seen through a microscope or seen 

 on a magic lantern sheet an object called ' the 

 radula of Patella vulgaris.' It is like a coil of rope 

 set with hooked barbs. I might have said a coil 

 of barbed wire, but the barbs are far more frequent, 

 are set in regular rows of several abreast in two or 



