A PEEP AT THE PERIWINKLE. 267 



any direction they please, and their wonderful tongue either 

 acts as a screw or a saw. In fact, simple as the organisation 

 of these animals appears to be, it is not less curious in its own 

 way than the structure of other beings which are thought to 

 be more complicated. In good truth, the common periwinkle 

 {Littorina vulgaris) is both worth studying and eating, vulgar 

 as some people may think it. 



Immense quantities of all the edible molluscs are annually 

 collected by women and children in order to supply the large 

 inland cities. Great sacks full of periwinkles, whelks, etc., 

 are sent on by railway to Manchester, Glasgow, London, etc. ; 

 whilst on portions of the Scottish searcoast the larger kinds 

 are assiduously collected by the fishermen's wives and pre- 

 pared as bait for the long hand-lines which are used in cap- 

 turing the codfish or other Gadidse. As an evidence of how 

 abundant the sesi-harvest is, I may mention that from a spot 

 so far north as Orkney hundreds of bags of periwinkles are 

 weekly sent to Loudon by the Aberdeen steamer. 



From personal inquiry made by the writer he estimated that 

 for the commissariat of London alone there were required three 

 millions of crabs and lobsters ! May we not, therefore, take 

 for granted that the other populous towns of the British empire 

 will consume an equally large number ? The people of Liver- 

 pool, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dublin, are as fond 

 of shell-fish as the denizens of the great metropolis ; at any rate, 

 they eat all they can get, and never get enough. The machinery 

 for supplying this ever-increasing demand for lobsters, crabs, 

 and oysters, is exceedingly simple. On most parts of the British 

 coast there- are people who make it their business to provide 

 those luxuries of the table for all who wish them. The capital 

 required for this branch of the fisheries is not large, and the 

 fishermen and their families attend to the capture of the crab 

 and lobster in the intervals of other business. The Scotch laird's 

 advice to his son to " be always stickin' in the ither tree, it wiU. 

 be growin' when ye are sleepin'," holds good in lobster-fishing. 

 The pots may be baited and left tiU such time as the victim 

 enters, whilst the men in the meantime take a short cruise in 

 search of bait, or try a cast of their haddock-lines a mile or two 

 from the shore ; or the fishing can be watched over, and when 

 the lobsters are numerous, the pots be lifted every half-hour or 

 so. The taking of sheU-fish also afibrds occupation to the old 

 men and youngsters of the fishing villages, and these folks may 



