40 EDIBLE GASTEROPODS. 



found in the Red Sea, but in this respect he is probably mis- 

 taken. The fish of his shell, however, are very wholesome, 

 and have a peppery taste, a circumstance so much the more 

 convenient, that they carry that ingredient of spice along 

 with them for sauce, with which travellers seldom burthen 

 themselves.* 



Of the marine Gasteropods I have not much to say. You 

 may have noticed the periwinkle (Littorina littorea, Fig. 6, a) 

 and common whelk (Buccinum undatum) exposed for sale, in 

 large quantities, in the fish-shops of the metropolis ; f and 

 they frequently furnish to the poorer classes of our sea-coast 

 towns and villages a repast, perhaps sufficiently wholesome, 

 and certainly not destitute of relish. J Holinshed is careful 

 to enumerate them among our native productions : " We 

 have in like sort no small 'store of great whelkes, scalops, and 

 periwinkles, and each of them brought farre into the land 

 from the sea-coast in their several seasons ;" and in the 

 following more complete list of our native edible mollusca, 

 Drayton assigns to each its popular virtue : 



" The oyster hot as they, the musle often trim'd 

 With orient pearls within, as thereby nature show'd, 

 That she some secret good had on that shell bestow'd. 

 The scallop cordial judg'd, the dainty whilk and limp, 

 The periwincle, prawn, the cockle, and the shrimp, 

 For wanton women's taste or for weak stomachs bought." 



You are ready to exclaim Enough ! but let me plead, in 

 excuse of my prolixity, that the subject was deemed of such 

 importance by the Dutch Society of Science of Haarlem, 

 that they offered a prize to any one who should add to the 

 list of the mollusca in common use any others that could with 

 advantage be employed as wholesome or agreeable food ; and 

 though to us even the poorest they may be properly 

 looked upon as mere entremets which can easily be dispensed 

 with, it is far otherwise with the still poorer inhabitants of 

 several of the western isles of Scotland. Periwinkles and 

 Limpets (Patella vulgata, Fig. 6, b), which so profusely stud 

 the rocks of their shores, are their daily fare, and on which 

 they are sometimes reduced to the necessity of altogether 



* Bruce's Travels, ii. 112. 



-f- They do not appear to have been so common in the days of Samuel 

 Johnson. In his " Journey to the Western Islands," he says, " Here I 

 saw what I had never seen before, limpets and mussels in their natural 

 state." p. 295. 



J In the lively old song, " The Blythsome Bridal," buckies and welks 

 are enumerated among the dishes of the heterogeneous feast. 



Desc. of England, 225. 



