How to catch Whelks. 295 



At Douglas and Port Erin at most seasons the pre- 

 vailing bait is Buccinum undatum, the common whelk, 

 which seems to be abundant in many places on shelly 

 banks. The mode of capture is by means of a basket 

 of wicker-work shaped like a bee-hive, with a hole in 

 the top about four inches wide having the border 

 reflexed straight downwards, not tapering as in a 

 lobster-pot. A few heavy weights of stone or metal 

 are fixed at the bottom of the basket to keep it down, 

 and some carrion or dead fish, often the unmarketable 

 dog-fish, are put in for bait to attract the mollusks, and 

 the whole is let down on suitable ground by a rope, 

 with cork floats to mark its position. The basket is 

 generally left for a night, sometimes for twenty-four 

 hours, after which lapse of time it is frequently found 

 full of the whelks, many of them also clinging to the 

 outside. Besides the Buccinum, there are frequently a 

 number of Fusus gracilis, and more rarely some of 

 Murex cinerea> and as these are too small for bait, 

 they are cast aside by the fishermen, and are thus con- 

 veniently at the service of any collector of shells who 

 may happen to want them. 



Robertson noticed that gorse was very abundant 

 in the Isle of Man, and that it was much used as a 

 fence on the top of the old turf dykes. Seeing that 

 in some places it was nicely trimmed and pre- 

 eminently ornamental, he expresses a wonder that it 

 is not more frequently treated in this way. 



In the following July we find him at work on the 

 east coast. At the meeting of the British Association 

 in the previous year a grant had been made to Mr. 

 Henry Brady, Dr. G. S. Brady and Mr. Robertson, as 



