158 JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY, VOT.. 9, NO. 5, JANUARY, 1899. 



II. — As food and medicine for man. 



Lovell in his " Edible British Molluscs" mentions four species of 

 our Helicidae, viz., H. pomatia, H. aspersa, H nemoralis, and H. 

 pisana, as the only edible species amongst our land and freshwater 

 molluscs. We can easily understand that the families Arionidae, 

 Limacidae, and Testacellidae, are not exactly attractive as food for man, 

 their food habits being, as Mr. Adams expresses it, " not nice." At 

 the same time, I have met with several instances where Agriolimax 

 agrestis has been regularly eaten as a cure for consumption. The 

 Vitrinidae, Zonitidae, Pupidae, and the smaller freshwater mollusca are 

 all far too small to be of any practical value as human food, and thus 

 we have left only the remaining Helicidae (of which I shall say more 

 later on) and the larger Limnaeidae (Z. peregra and L. stagnalis), the 

 Paludinidae, Unionidae, and Dreissensia. Of these the Limnaeidae and 

 Paludinidae are both mud-dwellers and carrion feeders to a great 

 extent, and would probably prove unwholesome, if not poisonous, as 

 food for man. If obtained from pure spring water I do not see why 

 both the Unionidae and Dreissensia polymorpha should not prove 

 palatable and wholesome food, especially the latter, which is so nearly 

 akin to the marine Mytilus edulis, 1 although no doubt salt water does 

 render many molluscs palatable which would not be so if taken from 

 fresh water. It would be interesting to test this fact with Dreissensia, 

 which is sometimes a marine species. Anodonta cygnea is said to be 

 eaten in County Leitrim, and species of Unio are eaten in the south 

 of Europe, roasted and scalloped. In China freshwater mussels are 

 cultivated in canals as food, and in North-west Australia they form 

 a staple article of diet. 



Now let us consider for a moment those Helices which are not 

 mentioned by Lovell as edible. Of these H. arbustorum would strike 

 one as quite as tempting and wholesome as, for instance, H nemoralis, 

 and I find this species mentioned by Moquin-Tandon as sometimes 

 eaten, though not much esteemed. The question of wholesome or 

 otherwise with the mollusca depends to a great extent upon the food 

 they have been feasting upon. For instance, molluscs sometimes feed 

 upon the leaves of foxglove, and even the more poisonous Atropa bella- 

 dotina is sometimes specially attractive to them as food, and if they were 

 soon afterwards partaken of by man, the result would be serious, if 

 not fatal. The same thing has actually occurred in the case of persons 

 who have partaken of rabbit which has been feeding upon the last- 

 mentioned fatal plant. A case further illustrating this point occurred 

 a few years ago to our newly-elected President. I forwarded to him a 

 number of Helix pisana from off the cliffs of Tenby, where these 



i This fact is disputed by F. Bernard (see Natural Science vol. 12 p. 4, 1898). 



