214 BY THE DEEP SEA. 



beach, for its range is from low-water to a hundred fathoms. 

 In deep water it is very plentiful, and fishermen who want it for 

 bait, let down baskets containing pieces of fish, which attract 

 a large number to their doom. Their remarkable clusters of 

 egg-nests are frequently washed ashore with seaweeds ; each 

 capsule in the bunch contains about half-a-dozen eggs. The 

 shell of the Whelk, rubbed down on a smooth slab of stone, 

 affords an admirable vertical section illustrating the structure 

 of gasteropods. 



The Red Whelk is the Fusus antiqittis, so-called because it 

 abounds in a fossil condition in the Red Crag of Essex, where 

 also occurs a reversed form that is, with the spire coiled the 

 contrary way, and hence called Fusus contraries. In Scotland 



RED WHELK. 



it is the Buckie, or the Roaring Buckie, for this is the shell in 

 which the roar of the sea resides. It is more esteemed than 

 the Common Whelk as food by the poorer population of 

 Scotland. It occurs, like Buccinum, from low-water to a 

 hundred fathoms. 



There is a fairly common shell, similar in size and general 

 form to the Purple, but bristling all over with flattened re- 

 curved hooks, in clusters of threes. It is generally known as 

 the Sting-winkle (Murex erinaceus), one of a genus from which 

 the celebrated purple dye of ancient Tyre was obtained. Its 

 familiar name it owes to its sharing in the hideous crime of 

 destroying edible species for the sole purpose of gratifying 



