2 
Whitstable, Grimsby, and many other places, and these do little else but collect 
whelks, which are put in bags and sent by rail or water to the metropolis. 
In by-gone ages the Romans used a large turbinated shell, which we now call 
Triton nodiferus, as a war trumpet, or to call together the people to a meeting. 
(I am informed that the West Indian natives still use a large shell for similar 
purposes.) 
This shell the Romans called " buccina," and hence Linne took the name 
Buccinum, under which generic title he included a large number of mollusca. 
I propose to divide this paper on the whelk into four heads. 
1st. — Its development. A, Physiological. B, Geological. 
2nd. — Its habits. 
3rd. — Its distribution. A, Geographical. B, Bathymetricai. 
4th. — General Remarks. 
Firstly, then, A, — Its physiological development. 
I do not propose giving an elaborately detailed account of its structure or 
constitution, because this has been admirably done by Cuvier and others, and it 
would be too dry and uninteresting a subject for this meeting. All that I shall 
attempt will be to give the principal facts connected with its embryology and 
economy. 
The whelk is oviparous. Its eggs are membraneous pouches or capsules. The 
parent generally deposits these capsules beneath, and attaches them to, a stone or 
oyster : they are, as a rule, about 300 or 400 in number, but occasionally as 
many as 500 or 600 may be found. They are always piled on each other and 
agglutinated, forming a vescicular mass, specimens of which are on the table. 
Each egg or capsule contains several hundred yolks, but this number is afterward 
so greatly reduced that only 20 or 30 fry come to maturity. Taking 400 as the 
normal number of capsules, and 25 as the average number of fry which arrive at 
maturity out of each capsule, would give us 10,000 young shells as the result of 
the spawn mass, the offspring of one pair of whelks in one season ! The mode 
by which the reduction of the embryos takes place is disputed. Some Scandina- 
vian naturalists assert that they amalgamate with each other. On the other hand 
an English naturalist (Sir John Lubbock), in a very interesting paper which 
appears in the "Report of the British Association," for 1860, states that he has 
ascertained that the larger and more advanced embryos swallow the other yolks. 
In another genus of the family, namely Purpura, the yolks divide into seg- 
ments, and the more advanced embryos swallow these segments one at a time. 
"When the fry are matured the capsules burst and liberate the inmates, who 
then commence the duties of independent existence. After a heavy storm these 
masses of capsules may be found on the shore. Sailors often collect them and use 
them for washing their hands. The spawning takes place during the winter 
months, and about two months are required for the development of the embryos. 
When emancipated from the capsule the fry have a shell with two whirls and an 
operculum. At this stage they certainly possess very little beauty. The blunt 
