508 WHELKS. 
As a general rule, there are about a hundred rows of teeth in the Whelk’s 
tongue ; each row contains three teeth, and each tooth is deeply cleft 
on notches, which practically gives the creature so many additional 
teeth. 
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 
eer digestible. The mode of taking these molluscs is very simple. 
arge 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 
IMPERIAL HARP-SHELL.—(Harga imperialts.) 
taken by merely raising the laden basket to the surface and emptying it into 
atub. Sometimes the Whelk is captured by the dredge, but the haited 
basket is the quickest and surest method. Besides its use as an arti le of 
human consumption, it is sometimes employed by the fishermen as bait for 
their hooks. 
The reader will doubtless have observed on the sea-shore 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. At the proper season of the year, when 
the unhatched egg-clusters are flung on the shores by the gales, the little 
Whelks can be di-covered within the capsules, several shells being found in 
each case. Later in the season, the egg-capsules will be seen to be split 
open at one end, so as to allow the young to escape. 
