One very curious thing about whelks is the way in which they lay their eggs. Very often indeed, as you walk along the sandy sea-shore, you will notice round clusters of yellowish white eggs, which often go rolling along before the wind. Each of these clusters is about as big as a cricket-ball, and the eggs of which it is made up are about as large as peas. Now these are the eggs of whelks, and I think that every one who sees them must wonder how these creatures can possibly manage to lay such very big balls of eggs. For each egg-ball is at least two or three times as big as the biggest whelk. But, after all, the explanation is quite a simple one. When the eggs are first laid they are very small indeed. Each is no bigger than a tiny pin’s head. Instead of having shells, however, these eggs have tough but very elastic skins; and these skins are made in such a way that while they allow water to soak in from the outside, they will not allow it to pass out again. So as soon as the eggs are dropped into the sea they begin to swell; and the result is that before very long each egg is as big as a good-sized pea. If you pick up a cluster of these curious eggs in the early spring and open them, you will find inside each the shell of a very tiny whelk, which is almost ready to hatch out. PLATE IX THE DOG WHELK (1) If you look in the ridges of small pebbles and bits of broken coal which you will meet with here and there on the sandy parts of the sea-shore, you are quite sure to find a number of very small whelk shells. They are brownish yellow outside, and pinkish white inside, and instead of being quite smooth, like those of the common whelk, they are covered with a number of ribs which run down from the peak to the margin. And these ribs are broken up in such a way that they look almost like rows of beads. [Illustration: PLATE VIII 1. THE WHELK. 2. THE EGGS OF WHELK.] These are the shells of the Dog Whelk, and if you wait until the tide is quite low, and then hunt about on the weed-covered rocks close to the edge of the sea, you will very likely find some of the living animals crawling about. They feed upon the sea-weeds by means of a curious organ called the tooth-ribbon. This is just a narrow strip of gristle, set with row upon row of very tiny hooked teeth; and by drawing this backwards and forwards over the leaves of the weeds the animal scrapes off very tiny pieces, which it then swallows. In the tooth-ribbon of one of these whelks there are about a hundred rows of teeth, with about nine teeth in each row: so that the animal has nearly a thousand teeth altogether. But of course you can only see them by means of a powerful microscope. PLATE IX THE STING WINKLE (2)