. Birds and nature . lk is used economical-ly, both for food and bait. One ingeni-ous method of catching them is to fastena dead fish of good size in a wire basketand to allow it to rest on the bottom fora short time; when taken up it is cov-ered with large, fat whelks. This fisheryin Great Britain is fully as valuable asour oyster fishery, the annual incomefrom this industry reaching to thousandsof pounds sterling. The animal is alsoone of the principal baits used in codfishing. A related genus, the neptuneshells (Neptunea), is also eaten by thepoorer people and makes a good codfishbait. The
. Birds and nature . lk is used economical-ly, both for food and bait. One ingeni-ous method of catching them is to fastena dead fish of good size in a wire basketand to allow it to rest on the bottom fora short time; when taken up it is cov-ered with large, fat whelks. This fisheryin Great Britain is fully as valuable asour oyster fishery, the annual incomefrom this industry reaching to thousandsof pounds sterling. The animal is alsoone of the principal baits used in codfishing. A related genus, the neptuneshells (Neptunea), is also eaten by thepoorer people and makes a good codfishbait. The two kinds of whelk (Buccinumand Neptunea), are termed, the first thewhite whelk and the second the red oralmond whelk, probably on account ofthe colors of the two shells. In the Shet-land Islands the red whelk is used as alamp, being suspended by strings from anail, the mouth placed uppermost andfilled with oil. The basket shells or dog-whelks areamong the most numerous in individuals 17(. UNIVERSITY Of luinuiaUR8AMA. of all the marine snail shells, the commonblack whelk (Nassa obsoleta) being themost common of all the mollusks. Thewriter has seen a mud flat at low waterliterally paved with the shells of this snail,there being millions of the little crea-tures crawling about. The shells of thisfamily are frequently very handsome, be-ing latticed by the crossing of lateral andlongitudinal lines. They are mostly ofsmall size, scarcely exceeding an inch inlength, many of them being much underthese dimensions. The animal is veryrapid in movement and leaves a distincttrack in the mud, which will frequentlyend at a little pellet of mud, which, uponexamination, will disclose the little ani-mal nicely concealed beneath. The Nassas of France are very de-structive to the oyster beds of that na-tion, an adult borer being able to per-forate the shell of a large oyster in a sin-gle night. So numerous are these peststhat a single acre has yielded over a thou-sand individuals. As a result of
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