XII. 



PERIWINKLES -AND OTHER OYSTER-PESTS. 



rT ^HE space between tide-marks, and the sheltered estuaries all along 

 -*~ the sea-coast, are infested by a great army of mollusks, crabs, and 

 fishes, whose food is found in the flesh of other mollusks. To obtain 

 this they are provided either with powerfully muscular mouths or with 

 file-like tongues and flexible sucking tubes. To these banditti the beds 

 of oysters are so many markets, and, in pursuing what to them is the 

 proper and the only possible couduet of life, they become pests to the 

 oyster planter only second to the star-fishes. Like those hated animals, 

 however, these conelis, periwinkles, and sea-snails, with their industrious 

 associates in mischief, creeping and swimming, present many points of 

 interest and great suggestiveness to the naturalist. 



The most important of the carnivorous mollusca, considered as enemies 

 of the oyster and pests to the planter, are the two large spiral mollusks, 

 ISycotypus canaliculatus and Fulgur carica* which along the coast are 

 confounded under the names "periwinkle," "winkle," "wrinkle" (New 

 England), and "conch" (Southern), with occasionally a distinguishing pre- 

 fix. Various other large shells also come under these generally applied 

 names ; and in the Gulf of Mexico we have, additionally, the " king conch," 

 " queen conch," and " horse conch." 



The sycotypus is more common north of New York — though it does 

 not exist at all beyond Cape Cod — while along the coast of New Jersey 

 and southward it is the fulgur which is chargeable with nearly all the mis- 

 chief perpetrated, since the other species is rarely seen. Occasionally, as 

 Verrill mentions, specimens of both may be found crawling on sandy flats 

 or in the tide -pools, especially during the spawning season, but they 

 ordinarily live in deeper water and on harder bottoms off shore. It is 

 needless to 6ay that they do not burrow at all, though they are able to in- 



* Some late studies in their anatomy (the figure on p. 141 gives a good idea of the 

 shape of the living animal in both) go to show that both these mollusks are species of 

 Fulgur, and more closely allied than has hitherto been suspected. 



