THE SNAILS AND SLUGS OF THE QBEEN LANES. 213 



recommend it, boiled in milk, as a cure for con- 

 sumption ! In the south of France on Ash Wednes- 

 day, both this species and the common Garden 

 snail (Helix nemoralis) are sold and eaten. In 

 the winter time you may see groups of five or six 

 of the former shells clustered together, the mouths 

 closed with a tolerably tough and waterproof 

 diaphragm, to protect the molluscs hybernating 

 within. The Eoman snail (Helix pomatia) is the 



Fig. 152. 



Spotted Snail (//. aspersa). 



largest of our indigenous species, but it is only 

 to be met with in the south of England, under 

 hedges, in woods, and on chalky soils. It seems to 

 have been introduced there about the middle of the 

 sixteenth century, and to have spread since then 

 over most of the southern counties. It was evidently 

 introduced for medicinal purposes, the larger species 

 of British snails formerly figuring importantly in 

 the pharmacopseia a use which has been left to the 

 " quacks," as a kind of " survival " of a pseudo- 



