234 EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSC A. 



large heaps of snails are to be seen of the same species 

 as those in Central France, and are sold by the bushel, 

 and by the hundred, as an article of food ; and a small 

 species, about the size of a pea, is collected in Algeria 

 in great numbers, and given to the ducks. 



At Oran (which is inhabited by a large number of 

 Spaniards), in the European portion of the town, the 

 Hon . Lewis Wingfield mentions coming upon a colony 

 of Spaniards, principally charcoal-burners, living in 

 dwellings hollowed out of the earth on the side of a 

 bank sloping to the sea. The better classes of these 

 extraordinary habitations were surrounded by a rough 

 bamboo paling completely covered with large land 

 snails, which are eaten by the poor people. There 

 were also heaps of them lying in the sun to dry, and 

 great stacks of them, neatly stored away in grass 

 hampers, ready for transmission into the interior.* 



Sir Gardner Wilkinson has seen basketsful of snails 

 carried about for sale in the streets in Cairo ; and in 

 ' Physical Geography of the Holy Land/ it is stated 

 that they are occasionally eaten in Syria, though not 

 often. 



De Busbecq, Seigneur of Indevelt, and Ambassador 

 to the Court of Portugal, in a letter to his friend 

 Nicholas Michault, written about 1554, gives the fol- 

 lowing story, which may amuse my readers. He 

 commences by giving a description of the scenery of 

 Constantinople, etc., and mentions various kinds of 

 fishes taken in the Bosphorus and the sea of Marmora, 

 and says also, " That the fishermen are for the most 

 part Greeks, as they take to the occupation more 



* * Under the Palms in Algeria and Tunis/ by the Hon. Lewis 

 Wingfield, vol. ii. p. 226. 



