LITTORINA. 371 



undermentioned localities are suspicious : Nice (Risso, 

 and " subfossile"); Palermo (Philippi, who however 

 doubted this species being indigenous to Sicily); and 

 Algiers (Weinkauff). 



The old English name of " periwincle " is supposed 

 to have been a corruption of petty winkle or wilk. 

 Lister says that the Scarborough fishermen called them 

 " couvins " ; and he adds that they were much sought 

 after by the Flemings. According to Dale, they were 

 called in Suffolk " pinpatches." The ancient vernacular 

 names for them were in Swedish ' ' kupunge," in French 

 " bigourneau," " vignot," or " vignette," and in the Bre- 

 ton dialect "vrelin" or " brelin." Throughout Shet- 

 land they are known as "wilks." In Strom's time th 

 Scandinavian peasants used to believe that, whenever 

 these shell-fish crept far up the rocks, it indicated a 

 storm from the south. The habits and anatomy of the 

 common periwinkle, and of some other marine testa- 

 ceous mollusca, were carefully described by the late 

 Mr. Osier in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' for 1832. 

 With respect to the phytophagous kinds, he states that 

 they have three distinct modes of feeding. "They 

 browse with opposite horizontal jaws they rasp their 

 food with an armed tongue, stretched over an elastic 

 and moveable support or they gorge it entire. Tro- 

 chus crassus \T. lineatus\ is a convenient example of 

 the first, Turbo littoreus [L. litorea'] of the second, and 

 Patella vulgata of the third/' With respect to the 

 tongue of L. litorea ("a flat strap-shaped organ and 

 more than two inches long") he observes, " It presents 

 three longitudinal ranges of teeth, which recline back- 

 wards, and are set like scales, with very little elevation 

 of their edges. In the two outer rows the teeth are 

 single, irregularly crescentic in shape, and set by their 



