THE LUNATIC AND THE SPORTSMAN. 



295 



not be entirely got rid of, and they I acceptance, I do not think thatthose 



assumed a vaunting device of a 

 laurel wreath, including their epi- 

 graph, "a V ' Immortalite" 



MODERN SNAIL-EATING. 



The practice of eating, if not of 

 talking to, snails seems not to be so 

 unknown in this country as some of 

 your readers might imagine. I was 

 just now interrogating a village 

 child in reference to the addresses 

 to snails, quoted under the head of 

 Folk Lore, vol. iii., pp. 132 and 179, 

 when she acquainted me with the 

 not very appetising fact, that she 

 and her brothers and sisters had 

 been in the constant habit of in- 

 dulging this horrible Limacotrophy. 

 * We hooks them out of the wall," 

 she says, " with a stick in winter 

 time, and not in summer time (so 

 it seems they have their seasons), 

 and we roasts them, and when 

 they've done spitting they be a-done ; 

 and we takes them out with a fork, 

 and eats them. Sometimes we has 

 a jug heaped up, pretty near my 

 pinafore full. I loves them dearly." 

 Surely this little bit of practical 

 cottage economy is worth record- 

 ing. Your correspondence. W. B., 

 does not seem to be aware that " a 

 ragout of borror (snails)" isaregular 

 dish with English gipsies. Vide 

 Borrow's Zinculi, part 1. c. v. He 

 has clearly not read Mr. Borrow's 

 remarks on the subject : " Know, 

 then, O Gentile, whether thou be 

 from the land of Gorgois (England), 

 or the Busue (Spain), that the very 

 gipsies, who consider a ragout of 

 snails a delicious dish, will not touch 

 an eel, because it bears a resemblance 

 to a snake ; and that those who will 

 feast on a roasted hedgehog, could 

 be induced by no means to taste a 

 squirrel !" Havi ng tasted of roasted 

 hotchiwitchu (hedgehog) myself 

 among the " gentle Eommanys," 

 I can bear witness to its delicate 

 fatness ; and, though a ragout of 



who consider (as most " Gorgois" 

 do) stewed eels a delicacy ought to 

 be too severe on " Limacotrophists 1" 

 (Notes and Queries.) 



CONCHOLOGT AND COLLECTORS. 



Conchology, as seen in museums 

 and cabinets, is but a collection of 

 husks and rinds of things that are 

 dead and gone. We treasure the 

 envelope, having lost the letter ; 

 the book is destroyed, and we pre- 

 serve the binding. Not one person 

 in a hundred who decorates hi3 

 apartment with shells can tell 

 whether the living creatures they 

 once contained had eyes or no eyes, 

 were fixed to the rock or drifted 

 with' the sea- weed, were purely 

 herbivorous, or, by an insinuating 

 but traamiable process, dieted on 

 the vitals of other molluscs their 

 neighbours. (Quarterly Eeview.) 



THE LUNATIC AND THE SPORTSMAN. 



In an article on "The World 'at 

 Large' " the purport of which is 

 to show that men who are reput- 

 edly sane often act very insanely 

 a writer in Chambers Journal re- 

 produces this good old story : "A 

 gentleman of fortune visited a lun- 

 atic asylum, where the treatment 

 consisted chiefly of forcing the 

 patients to stand in tubs of cold 

 water, those slightly affected up to 

 the knees ; others, whose cases weip 

 graver, up to the middle ; while 



were 

 The 



visitor entered into conversation 

 with one of the patients, who ap- 

 peared to have some curiositv to 

 know how the stranger passed his 

 time out of doors. " I have horses 

 and greyhounds for coursing," said 

 the latter in reply to the oti 



persons very seriously ill 

 immersed up to the neck. 



question, 

 expensive 



.Ah! these are very 

 " Yes ; they cost me 



.a great deal of money in the year, 

 but they are the best of their 

 snails was never offered for my ! kind. " " Have you anything 



