234 SNAILS AND SLUGS [CH. VII 



squares are filled with moss, and the enclosed snails fed 

 upon a liberal diet of cabbage and lettuce leaves until they 

 acquire a greenish-white colour. They are exported after 

 the formation of the winter epiphragm and fetch about 17 

 francs per 1000. Paris alone is said to consume some fifty 

 tons of snails daily during the time that they are in 

 season. 



In our own country, especially in the Western counties 

 and in Yorkshire, Helix aspersa is in demand. In the 

 neighbourhood of Bristol there exists a regular industry 

 in collecting snails, which are highly esteemed by glass- 

 blowers as " soothing to the chest." They are reputed also 

 to be a cure for consumption, and the slime rubbed over 

 the surface of a wart and allowed to dry is said to remove 

 the excrescence. Lovell 1 states that they are employed in 

 the manufacture of cream, and that a retired milkman 

 pronounced it the most successful imitation known. The 

 condition of the informant would appear to indicate that 

 it was also remunerative. 



1 Edible Molluscs ; cf. Cooke, Camb. Nat. Hist., "Molluscs and Brack- 

 iopods," pp. 118 121. 



