284 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. 



palatable. They are thought to be in best season 

 in the winter, when they are hybernating, and 

 covered with their temporary calcareous oper- 

 culum, which falls off in the spring. The Ro- 

 mans appear to have fattened these snails, in 

 places appropriated for that purpose. Pliny 

 mentions several sorts that were kept separate, 

 and amongst others white ones that were found in 

 the neighbourhood of Rieti. The Illyrian snails 

 he describes as the largest ; the African as 

 most prolific ; others from Soletum, in the 

 Neapolitan territory, as the noblest and best : 

 he speaks of some as attaining to so enormous 

 a size, that their shells would contain eighty 

 pieces of money of the common currency. 1 

 Bruguieres, to whom conchology is under very 

 great obligations, is of opinion that, by cultiva- 

 tion, the several species of snails might be 

 brought to a much greater size, and furnish an 

 abundant, wholesome, and even delicate aliment. 

 There is no reason why the species of this genus, 

 which feed on vegetable substances, should not 

 be as palatable as the oyster or periwinkle. 



Snails, in general, are hermaphrodites, or 

 unite both sexes in the same individual : this is 

 the case with the great majority of Molluscans ; 

 the object of Providence, in this kind of orga- 

 nization, is evidently the greater multiplication 

 of the species, but though hermaphrodites, in 



1 Quadrans. 



