422 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. LIY 



adductor muscles are relaxed or the victim is dead, when 

 the feeding begins. Several dead clams, of these species 

 mentioned, were found in possession of Polynices, hut 

 none of them were drilled. It is thus seen that this gas- 

 teropod is very decidedly an enemy of the bivalved mol- 

 lusks, but its method of killing clams is different from that 

 described by Keep and Daugherty. 



Several specimens of Polynices lewisii were obtained 

 and brought to Bremerton, where experimentation on the 

 possibility of utilizing them as food was carried out. Two 

 methods of preparing the animals for the table were 

 used : first, steaming in the moisture contained within its 

 swollen foot, and second, breaking the shell and frying 

 the animal alive in butter. Either of these methods gave 

 good results. By the former, a delicious broth was the 

 principal result; by the latter, a large piece of variant 

 meat. The foot, however, by either method, becomes 

 rather tough when cooked. As some one has held that the 

 meat of Polynices is poisonous, not so very much was 

 eaten ; no ill effects, however, were felt from that con- 

 sumed. The idea that Polynices is unfit for food is of 

 course baseless, as I am informed by Professor Kincaid 

 that thousands of Polynices shells may be found in the 

 Indian kitchen-middies, which indicates that the Indians 

 used this mollusk as food, and as the Polynices' shells are 

 found in these remains in much greater proportion than 

 any other shells, this gasteropod must have been widely 

 sought by the Aborigines ; or it may be that Polynices 

 was formerly more abundant than any other mollusk on 

 our western coast. At any rate, this gasteropod seems to 

 have been a common diet of the Indians who lived along 

 Puget Sound. The tastes of Indian and white man are 

 not unlike in these matters, for white people eat various 

 species of clams, also an Indian diet, and seem to delight 

 in such food, as is well demonstrated by the establishment 

 of shell-fish canneries on our coasts. 



It does not seem unreasonable, therefore, that Poly- 

 nices as well will find a ready market. In fact, it might 



