328 CHAPTER XLVI. 



despise them. Passing strange, and a sad sign of 

 national degeneracy that your true-born Englishman 

 should feed on " cockled snails," as Shakespeare calls 

 them. The shiny-black mussel, the corrugated cockle, 

 the sewage-fed oyster, the carnivorous whelk, all these 

 we may eat without loss of self-respect ; but a snail 

 fattened on bran and groundsel ; no, never ! Leave 

 that to the foreigneering Frenchman. We blush for 

 those workmen of Didcot ! 



A story is told of a town that was besieged. The 

 defenders were starving ; they grew thinner and leaner 



Fig. 110. VENUS' EAR. 



every day. One woman only showed no signs of 

 distress ; she remained as fat as an ortolan. People 

 began to talk about witchcraft, and it would have 

 fared ill with the poor widow had she not made a 

 clean breast of it, and confessed that her life was 

 preserved by snails, not sorcery. 



Sir Richard Burton, the oriental linguist and 

 traveller, when a lad, had a bone to pick with an 

 elderly French lady who lived next door. Wishing 



