EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSCA. 



quantities of Helix aperta, for food for the higher 

 classes at Rome, where it is known by the name of 

 Monacello. The shell is of a yellowish-olive colour and 

 nearly translucent, thin, and of an ovate-globular form. 

 It has a large mouth, with the peristome white, and 

 the whorls four in number. In the heat of summer, 

 and during the winter, this Helix, like Helix pomatia, 

 buries itself in holes in the ground, shutting up the 

 aperture of its shell with a calcareous epiphragm. 



Two of the specimens I have in my collection, which 

 came from Italy, still have this epiphragm very per- 

 fectly preserved, and it is glossy, and slightly convex. 

 Theophrastus, in his ( Treatise upon Animals which live 

 in holes/ states that snails have the habit of burying 

 themselves. He says, " Snails live in holes during the 

 winter, and still more in summer, on which account 

 they are seen in the greatest numbers during the 

 autumn rains. But their holes in the summer are 

 made in the ground, and in the trees.* 



Helix nemoralis is also eaten, and at Toulouse sells 

 for five or ten centimes a dish ; but by some, snails 

 with striped shells are not considered good, as they 

 have a bad taste and smell. M. Moquin-Tandon pur- 

 chased, in 1847, in the market at Toulouse, a basket 

 containing four hundred specimens of Helix aspersa, 

 for sixty centimes; and another, with 1503 specimens 

 of Helix nemoralis, for seventy- five centimes making 

 fifteen centimes the hundred for the former, and a little 

 less than five centimes for the latter. Helix nemoralis, 

 and Helijc hortensis, are known by various names in 

 France ; for instance, " at Bordeaux they are called 

 Demoiselles; Mogne at Libournes, Limaio at Agen, 

 * Athenseus, 'Deipn.' vol. i. p. 104. 



