HELICIDJE. SNAIL. 11 



snails as the largest, the African as the most prolific; 

 others from Soletum, in the Neapolitan territory, as the 

 noblest and best. He also speaks of some as attaining 

 to so enormous a size that their shells would contain 80 

 pieces of money of the common currency,* that is to 

 say, 80 quadrantes, the quadrans being a small copper 

 coin f of an inch in diameter, about the size of a new 

 sixpence, and T y of an inch thick. This statement of 

 Pliny's is really not so improbable as may appear at 

 first sight, for on trying how many sixpences a usual- 

 sized specimen of our largest snail, Helix pomatia, 

 would hold, I find that about 40 could easily be put into 

 it; and in the museum of the Jardin des Plantes, in 

 Paris, there are two specimens of this Helix from Mol- 

 davia, nearly twice the size of the usual ones, measuring 

 about 2-j inches in breadth, and which would easily hold 

 80 sixpences. 



Fulvius Hirpinus studied the art of fattening them 

 with so much success, that some of his snails would 

 contain about 10 quarts. Pliny, in his letter to Sextus 

 Erucius Clarus, says (complaining of his not fulfilling his 

 engagement to sup with him) : — " I had prepared, you 

 must know, a lettuce apiece, three snails, two eggs and 

 a barley cake, with some sweet wine and sno\v."f 



In Sir Gardner Wilkinson's ' Dalmatia and Monte- 

 negro/ he tells us that the Illyrian snails mentioned 

 by PlinyJ are very numerous in Veglia or Veggia, the 

 Cyractica of Strabo. 



Both Helix, pomatia and Helix aspersa are eaten abroad 

 to this day, and in England Dr. Gray says§ that the glass- 



* Kirov's Hist, of Animals, etc., ' Bridgewater Treatise,' vol. i. p. 284. 

 f Pliny's Letters, p. 30, vol. i. % plm J> ix - 5 °*. 



§ Blackwood's Edin. Mag., no. 561, July, 1862. 



