LOBSTERS, CRABS, AND WHELKS 



of pots if full would yield about twelve bushels of whelks ; 

 and a fair average catch from five series would be forty 

 bushels. The fish are stowed in bags and sent away by 

 rail. 



It may be asked, what need is there for making a 

 special fishery of whelks when the dredgers land such a 

 great number ? The dredgers do indeed, when their own 

 catches are poor, pick out the whelks and put them aside 

 for selling; but it is rather like a private householder 

 saving his empty wine-bottles for sale; the proceeds of 

 small quantities are so ridiculously low that only a miserly 

 or very poor man would trouble to keep them ; and the 

 dredger who can earn from six to ten shillings a day is 

 not likely to neglect his own work for the sake of a gain 

 of about fivepence-halfpenny. 



Whelks as seen in London on a costermonger's barrow 

 would, I think, only tempt a very hungry man, or one 

 whose appetite had a strange bias ; yet these fish are a 

 favourite food among the fisher people, and, from the 

 fact that a man will often do a hard day^s work on nothing 

 else, they must needs be nourishing. Boiled the moment 

 they come out of the sea, and eaten hot with a sea- 

 appetite, they are certainly very good, and, inasmuch as 

 the intestine can be removed, are much safer and cleaner 

 eating than crabs or lobsters. There is a member of this 

 family, called the red whelk, which is very tasty but, ac- 

 cording to the fishermen, very disastrous in its effect on 

 the eater ; they say that a plateful of such fish will make 

 a man absolutely intoxicated. 



178 



