126 
EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 
scarce_, and they had been obliged to walk some miles in 
the morning to purchase it. 
On some parts of the coast the fishermen use the 
Buccinum for bait for the long-line fishing, and they 
know it by the following names, viz. the conch, buckie, 
whelk-tingle, or sting-winkle and at Youghal they call 
whelks googawns,^^ and ‘'^cuckoo shells.^^ 
In ^ Popular History of the Mollusca,^ by Miss Ro- 
berts, she mentions this species of shell being used in 
North Wales as trumpets by the farmers for calling their 
labourers ; and shells of a similar kind are also used in 
Muscovy and Lithuania by the herdsmen for collecting 
their cattle, horses, mules, goats, and sheep. The 
Italian herdsmen use them also. 
In some parts of Staffordshire the farmers call up 
their cattle by means of a horn or trumpet. In Tahiti 
shells were also used as trumpets, — a species of murex 
being the kind generally employed for that purpose. The 
largest shells were selected, sometimes a foot in length, 
and seven or eight inches in diameter at the mouth. A 
perforation, about an inch in diameter, was made near 
the apex of the shell, in which was inserted a bamboo 
cane, three feet in length, secured by being bound to 
the shell, — the aperture rendered air-tight by the out- 
sides of it being cemented with a resinous gum from the 
breadfruit-tree. These shells were blown when any 
procession marched to the temple, and at other religious 
ceremonies ; besides being used by the herald, and on 
board the native fleets. The sound is described as very 
loud, monotonous, and dismal. 
We are told that in the island of Tanna, in the New 
Hebrides, shell trumpets are blown as signals to the 
* A Book for the Seaside. 
