4 
upon. A thin shell, like Maitra stultorum, would probably be perforated in 
four or five hours, a thick cockle or " Venus" would take several days. What a 
wonderful instinct is here displayed by this humble creature ! With very low 
visual power it finds, with unerring accuracy, a living bivalve, and spends days of 
labour to accomplish its object. It is sufficiently sentient to d etect whether the 
bivalve is living or dead before it commences its task. I have examined very 
large quantities of dredgings from all parts of the British seas, in which per- 
forated bivalves are very common, yet never saw a stone or any foreign substance 
perforated, and no naturalist has ever recorded having done so, with but one 
exception. It was, I believe, Dr. Battersby, who narrates having found a spine 
of an Echinus which had been perforated by a whelk or one of the Muricidce. 
When we take into consideration the smallness and the rudimentary character of 
the eyes of the whelk it certainly is very wonderful how accurately it searches out 
the living mollusca to feed upon. At low water of spring tides the whelk may be 
found. It burrows beneath the sand or mud, exposing only the end of its syphon, 
by means of which it obtains water or air. This hiding place is revealed by a 
little hillock, hare it hides till return of tide, when it again wanders about in 
search of food, or perhaps to fall a prey in its turn to a cod, haddock, or other 
fish. It does not hibernate like many other mollusks, cold water is its proper 
habitat. It is supposed to possess the faculty of smelling. On the coast of 
Cheshire the fishermen place a dead dog or other animal at low water 
mark, and cover it over with a large pile of stones. At the next recess of tide 
the spot is again visited, and whelks are found on the stones, apparently attracted 
by the smell of the covered carcase. This supposed faculty of smelling seems to 
be more probable from the fact that the greater quantity of whelks are caught in 
the traps when the bait is stale, and the odour consequently stronger. Like its 
congeners the whelk crawls into the crab and lobster pots, and there frequently 
falls a prey to these crustaceans, _who crack the whelk shell with their powerful 
mandibles and eat the contents. 
3rd, — D i stri b ution . A, — G eographical. 
The whelk has a very extensive distribution in northern latitudes ; it ranges 
throughout the Celtic Boreal and Arctic Seas, and from Boreal America to 
Greenland. Its southernmost limit appears to be Rochelle, a French seaport in 
the Bay of Biscay. It is stated to have been found in the Gulf of Lyons, in the 
stomach of a fish {Trigla gurnardus), and I should feel no surprise if such were 
the case, as I have long thought it probable that in the great depths of the Mediter- 
ranean, where there would necessarily be a low temperature, the whelk may still 
survive. I say still survive, because, during the newer Pleiocene epoch, it lived in 
the Mediterranean, and we can gather from the fact that the climate ot the South 
of Europe was much colder than it now is. As a warmer temperature came on 
the whelk died or retired to colder districts. 
As connected with this phenomenon, it may not be out of place here to remark 
that other Boreal and even Arctic species formerly lived in Celtic and South 
European areas. Natica clausa and Cyprina islandica are found fossilized in 
Sicily. The southernmost limits in which the latter is now found living are the 
Channel Islands and opposite coast of France, and the former lives in the cold 
