lo Our British Snails 



country in the world ; and have been President 

 of the Conchological Society of Great Britain 

 and Ireland. 



I am now, therefore, writing about our British 

 land shells, ** slugs and snails " in common 

 speech, with the hope that it may add a new 

 interest to the country walks of lads and lasses. 



I could show you a wall-case I made for a school. 

 It contains specimens of all the British land 

 shells with the exception of the slugs, which 

 (with the exception of one of which I shall speak 

 in its place) have no external or covering shell, 

 although a small sort of shell, or at any rate 

 some chalky grains, is found inside most of them. 

 You would see that some are as small as a pin's 

 head although full grown, and they' would require 

 a magnifying glass to distinguish one from the 

 other. The largest is Helix pomatia (figured on 

 pp. II and 12), which often goes by the name of 

 " the edible snail." All snails are edible and nu- 

 tritious ; but this is the one cultivated in snail 

 farms and sold as food abroad. Sometimes it 

 is called "the Roman snail," from an idea, pro- 

 bably wrong, that it was introduced by Caesar's 

 soldiers, although as a matter of fact it is unknown 

 in South Italy. Sometimes also it is called "the 

 apple snail," partly because it is as large as a 

 middle-sized apple, and partly because people 

 thought the name pomatia came from the Latin 

 pomum, " an apple," whereas it really comes from 



