.230 EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSCA. 



poynatia) was from 2s. to 3s. per hundred, while those 

 from the hedges, woods, and forests, brought only 

 Is. 6d. to 2s. He further adds, that in the vicinity of 

 Dijon the proprietor of one snailery is said to clear 

 near]y £300 a year by his snails ; and also that there are 

 exported from Crete annually about 20,000 okes (each 

 nearly 31bs.) of snails, valued at 15,000 Turkish piastres. 

 M. Renou (as quoted by M. Cailliaud of Nantes), in 

 a curious account, read in 1864 before the Academical 

 Society at Nantes, on the importance that the ancients 

 attached to snails, observed, that during 1862 and 

 1863, the escargots brought to the March e de la 

 Bourse, at Nantes, on Sundays and fete days, amounted 

 in number to 996,000, producing the sum of 2490 

 francs.* M. Roux, superintendent of the Clos de 

 Vougeot, and neighbouring vineyards, gave, in the 

 ' Union Bourguignonne/ some details of the operation 

 of clearing the vines of snails. The Clos de Vougeot 

 vineyard yielded fifty-five double-decalitres (each thirty- 

 five pints); Romanee-Conti, six; Chambertin, six; Per- 

 riere and Plante-Chaude, three; in all, seventy. It was 

 calculated that these snails would have eaten up 

 buds, the produce of which, M. Roux estimated at from 

 fifteen to twenty pipes of wine, without reckoning the 

 injury to next year's growth. The cost of clearing 

 these snails in the fifty -five hectares of the vineyard in 

 question amounted to 120 francs, a mere trifle compared 

 to what was saved. It is further stated that these mol- 

 lusks were sold at a remunerative price, as, when sold 

 in Dijon, Lyons, and especially in Paris, they repre- 

 sented a value of several thousand francs.f 



* ' Catalogue des Iladiaires, des Annelides, des Cirrhipedes,' &c, 

 par Frederic Cailliaud, de Nantes, p. 222. 

 t ' Morning Post,' May 8th, 1868. 



