124 
EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 
flour; strain and season with pepper, cayenne, and salt, 
and a slight flavouring of lemon-juice or vinegar. The 
limpets, being tough and indigestible, are not returned 
into the sauce.* 
Fam. MUEICTD^. 
B UCCINUM.—\N HELK. 
Buccinum undatum, Linnaeus. Whelk . — Shell ovate, 
with eight whorls, more or less inflated, covered with 
transverse coarse striae ; waved or undulated obliquely, 
covered with a yellowish-brown epidermis ; length about 
four inches. The aperture large, nearly half the length 
of the body whorl. Columella strong, pillar lip smooth, 
and bent back; interior white, very polished, sometimes 
lemon-colour, or orange ; canal short ; operculum of a 
reddish horn colour. 
The shell of the common whelk, or buckie, the Buccin 
onde of the French, varies very much in colour, being 
sometimes yellowish, without bands, and other specimens 
having chestnut spiral bands, or wavy blotches. White 
varieties are occasionally taken, and the shell figured 
being dredged up in deep water, has still the rough oli- 
vaceous-coloured epidermis on it. It is found often on 
the beach, and is a great enemy to other mollusks, 
boring holes in their shells, and sucking the juices of the 
fish within, by means of its spiny tongue. Dr. Harvey, 
in his ^ Seaside Book,^ says that the proboscis of the 
whelk consists of two cylinders, one within the other, 
the outer of which serves for the attachment of the mo- 
tor muscles, and the general protection of the organ; 
* ‘ Practical Cookery,’ p. 95, Hartlaw Reid. 
