224 EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSCA. 



contain about ten 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 

 "ggs, and a barley-cake, with some sweet wine and 

 enow."* 



In Sir Gardner Wilkinson's * Dalmatia and Monte- 

 <egro/he tells us that the Illyrian snails mentioned by 

 'liny are very numerous in Veglia or Veggia, the 

 Jyractica of Strabo. 



Both Helix pom.atia and Helix aspersa are eaten 

 abroad to this day, and formerly in England, according 

 to Dr. Gray, the glassmen at Newcastle indulged 

 the m selves in a snail-feast once a year, and collected 

 them from the fields and hedgerows on the previous 

 Sunday. Addison, in his ' Travels,' mentions having 

 Seen a snail garden, or " escargotiere," at the Capucins, 

 in Friburg. It was a square place boarded in,. filled 

 with a vast quantity of large snails. The floor was 

 strewn about half a foot deep with several kinds of 

 plants, for the snails to nestle amongst during, the 

 winter. When Lent arrived, their magazines were 

 opened, and a ragout made of snails. In Barrois, an 

 " escargotiere " consists of a cask with the head 

 staved in, covered with a net ; or a square hole with 

 the sides lined with wood, and fastened over at the top 

 with an iron trellis, or with a simple hurdle made of 

 light osier-sticks. The snails are placed in as they 

 find them, until there are sufficient for a repast, or for 

 ale. They are also kept in these places till they are 



ttened, or till they close their shells with their 

 piphragm, which enables them to be more easily 

 * Flip's ' Letters,' vol. i. p. 30. 



