384 A PEEP AT THE PERIWINKLE. [CHAP. ix. 



of the larger Crustacea, the juveniles may with advantage take 

 a peep at the periwinkles, the whelks, or other mollusca. 

 These are found in immense profusion on the little stones 

 between high and low water mark, and on almost every rock 

 on the British coast. Although to the common observer the 

 oyster seems but a repulsive mass of blubber, and the peri- 

 winkle a creature of the lowest possible organisation, nothing 

 can be further from the reality. There is throughout this 

 class of animals a wonderful adaptibility of means to ends. 

 The turbinated shell of the periwinkle, with its finely-closed 

 door, gives no token of the powers bestowed upon the animal, 

 both as provision for locomotion (this class of travellers 

 wherever they go carry their house along with them) and 

 for reaping the tender rock-grass upon which they feed. They 

 have eyes in their horns, and their sense of vision is quick. 

 Their curiously-constructed foot enables them to progress in 

 any direction they please, and their wonderful tongue either 

 acts as a screw or a saw. In fact, simple as the organisation 

 of these animals appears to be, it is not less curious in its own 

 way than the structure of other beings which are thought to 

 be more complicated. In good truth, the common periwinkle 

 (Littorina vulgaris) is both worth studying and eating, vulgar 

 as some people may think it. 



Immense quantities of all the edible molluscs are annually 

 collected by women and children in order to supply the large 

 inland cities. Great sacks full of periwinkles, whelks, etc., 

 are sent on by railway to Manchester, Glasgow, London, etc. ; 

 whilst on portions of the Scottish sea-coast the larger kinds 

 are assiduously collected by the fishermen's wives and pre- 

 pared as bait for the long hand-lines which are used in cap- 

 turing the codfish or other Gadidae. -As an evidence of how 

 abundant the sea-harvest is, I may mention that from a spot 

 so far north as Orkney hundreds of bags of periwinkles are 

 weekly sent to London by the Aberdeen steamer. 



