SHORES OF THE CLYDE AND FIRTH. 
41 
found who have the slightest knowledge of the habits of 
life of the creatures they handle. The marketable value 
is the all-absorbing thought, and the invariable answer 
to the question, " How long do they take to grow ? " is, 
*^ Sure they don't grow at all ; they are just as we find 
them." 
CHAPTER VI. 
THE DOG WHELK. 
SCANNING- the rough surface of the boulders of the 
shore, or drawing aside the brown fronds of their 
tangled drapery in order to get a peep of the numerous 
crevices beneath, amongst the many forms seen there is 
a group of straw-coloured capsules, numbering from five 
to as many as thirty, about the size of a small pile of corn, 
and very much the same shape. These are the eggs of the 
dog whelk, scientifically called the purpura lapilis. Standing 
upright on a level crevice, or straight out from the perpen- 
dicular, they are firmly gummed or rooted to their 
respective positions. Some of them are open at the 
exposed point, the young animals having already escaped 
to their active life along the shore. Others are still full, 
and the hatching of the progeny is going on. 
According to Dr Carpenter, who made these capsules 
a particular study, each one contains 500 or 600 globules, 
but only from twelve to thirty of these are developed 
into young animals, and after the development of the 
earliest is accomplished, the embryo turn upon the other 
