WHELK.. tSucnnum. undotum. 



COHCHOLEPA.S. Voncltalepas Peruvian*. 



Vast quantities of Whelks are taken annually for the markets, and are consumed 

 almost wholly by the poorer classes, who consider them in the light of a delicacy. They 

 are, however, decidedly tough and stringy in texture, and, like the periwinkle, which is 

 also largely eaten, are not particularly digestible. The mode of taking these molluscs 

 is very simple : Large wicker-baskets are baited with the refuse portions of fish, and 

 lowered to the bottom of the sea by ropes. The ever-hungry Whelks instinctively discover 

 the feast, crowd into the basket by thousands, and are taken by merely raising the laden 

 basket to the surface, and emptying it into a tub. Sometimes the Whelk is captured by 

 the dredge, but the baited basket is the quickest and surest method. Besides its use as 

 an article of human consumption, it is sometimes employed by the fishermen as bait for 

 their hooks. 



The reader will doubtlessly have observed on the seashore considerable masses of little 

 yellowish capsules, mostly empty, and so light as to be drifted on the surface of the sea like 

 so many masses of corks These are the empty egg-cases of the Whelk, and in the 

 illustration a small group of them is represented adhering to the oyster-shell on the right- 

 hand of the cut. At the proper season of the year, when the egg-clusters are flung on the 

 shores by the gales, the little Whelks can be discovered within the capsules, several shells 

 being found in each case. When hatched, the young escape into the sea through a round 

 hole in the capsule. 



The empty shells of this mollusc are often seized by the Well-known hermit or 

 soldier-crab, who is obliged to content himself while in his youth with the shell of the 

 tops, advances with increasing size to the larger habitation of the purpura, and when he 



