ANCIENT SNAIL-STIES. 87 



mentioned that H. pomatia was one of the delicacies that found 

 its way to the table of the Eoman epicure ; but long before 

 Romans or Home, not only H. pomatia, but Snails of all sorts 

 saving and excepting, of course, that one notable case of If. 

 polycroa served as dainty morsels for a variety of birds and 

 quadrupeds, which are now asserted to thrive and fatten on the 

 slimy fare. The hedgehog is well known to make great havoc 

 amongst their ranks during his nocturnal rambles. Vast 

 numbers of the smaller kinds are eaten by the sheep which graze 

 upon the scant herbage of some of our waste lauds ; and there is 

 still a doubt in our mind whether we ought not to attribute to 

 this circumstance the superior flavour of South Down and Dart- 

 moor mutton. Again, what country schoolboy is there who has 

 not seen the thrush and the blackbird a snail-gathering in 

 winter, and cleverly cracking the shells on some convenient 

 stone to get at the dainty morsel within? In the vast forests of 

 South America, the huge Bulimi are roasted and eaten by the 

 natives as a frequent article of food : and one of our own childish 

 recollections is of a terrible goggle-eyed, idiotic sort of white 

 Indian, as we suppose he must have been, whom we often used 

 to come across in the bowery Devonshire lanes, picking Snails 

 and cracking them, and, all frothy and sputtering as they were, 

 bolting them outright, for the benefit of his " chest." 



The Eomans not only ate Snails ; they reared them and 

 fattened them up with as much care as we do our poultry. 

 Pliny, indeed, has immortalized the individual one Fulvius 

 Hirpinus who invented the " cochlearife," or sties in which the 

 dainty fare was fattened for the table. There were several com- 

 partments in the sty, and each compartment had its occupants 

 from some particular district ; so that your cultivated epicure, 

 with his nice discrimination of flavours, could select his Snails 

 pretty much as the modern man of fashion can select his wine. 

 The great perfection to which the Snails were brought under this 

 system of fattening led to a hot competition as to who should have 

 the biggest ; and in the end, as Pliny tells us on the authority of 

 Varro, they were brought to such a size, that some of the shells 

 would hold ten quarts ! The usual method of cooking the over- 

 grown monsters appears to have been that of frying them, or 

 else grilling them on a silver gridiron. In France, and some or 

 the countries of southern Europe, //. pomatia, has been eaten 



