128 
EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 
£5. The Chinese also hold reversed chank-shells in 
special veneration, and give high prices for them. They 
are kept in the Pagodas by the priests and used on 
special occasions, and the consecrated oil is kept in one 
of these sinistrorsal Turbinellidm, with which the Em- 
peror is anointed at his coronation."^ From the earliest 
ages, the Gulf of Manaar has been fished for chanks. 
Dr. Potter, in his ^ Archseologia Grseca,’ vol. ii., states 
that the ancient Greeks used shells as trumpets, as the 
Spaniards do at the present day ; and that the first Gre- 
cian signals were lighted torches thrown from both 
armies by men who were priests of Mars, and that these 
signals being laid aside, shells of fishes succeeded, which 
were sounded in the manner of trumpets, which in those 
days were not invented. Hence Theognis’s riddle may 
easily be interpreted : — 
“ A sea-inhahitant with living mouth 
Spolce to me to go home, though dead it was.” 
Triton^s shell-trumpet is famous in poetical story, 
whence Ovid, speaking of Neptune : — 
“ Already Triton at his call appears 
Above the waves, a Tyrian robe he wears ; 
And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears. 
The sov’reign bids him peaceful sounds inspire. 
And give the waves the signal to retire ; 
His writhen shell he takes, whose narrow vent, 
Grrows by degrees into a large extent,” — Dryden. . 
And most of the poets mention this custom in their 
description of primitive wars. 
The German name for the whelk is very appropriate, 
viz. Trompetenschnecke, ov Kinkhorn. In Anglo-Saxon, 
whelk is weolc, but weolc is said to mean that which 
* Lubbock’s ‘Prehistoric Times,’ vol. i. p. 222. 
