MASEFIET.D : THE ECONOMIC ITSE OF SOME BRITISH MOIXUSCA. 159 



molluscs had probably been feeding on some poisonous plant, but 

 unfortunately my friend who had eaten this species in Marseilles and 

 enjoyed them there, thought he would enjoy another meal of the 

 Tenby snails. He wrote to tell me that the result was not a happy 

 one, as, to use his own words, " they woke me in the night to think of 

 them, and the next morning I again remembered them." 



Then, taking the remaining larger Helices, we have H. cantiana, H. 

 itala, and H virgata ; these are all, I believe, included in continental 

 menus, and I should have thought might be quite as palatable as other 

 Helices in this country, although in order to get over the prejudice 

 against these animals as an article of diet, a famine must, I fear, first 

 occur. 



We have now reduced our list to the four species mentioned by 

 Lovell. The first and largest, H. pomatia, is to be found every day 

 in the Parisian restaurants, and is generally and regularly eaten 

 throughout many continental countries. I have only been able as yet 

 to meet with one instance of this species being eaten in this country, 

 and that was near Chedworth, in Gloucestershire, where this snail is 

 plentiful, although it certainly appears from the whiteness and clean 

 appearance of the animal itself, to be a far more tempting morsel than 

 H. aspersa, which is eaten in many parts of England, and is regularly 

 sold in Covent Garden and other London markets, where I have heard 

 of its being labelled as " wall fish." Dr. Gray says " quantities 

 of these molluscs are packed in casks and sent to the United States 

 as delicacies. In France they are supplied to trading vessels as part 

 of their provisions." L. E. Adams says : '■'•Helix aspersa still forms 

 an article of food in various parts of England ; the taste is insipid, 

 and the animals tough if not well boiled; as nourishing food, however, 

 they rank with calf's foot jelly, oysters, etc." Harting states : "Snail 

 syrup is at the present day used as a specific in all cases of cough and 

 cold." H. nemoralis and H. pisana are both included in Lovell's 

 edible list, and Mr. Adams tells me he has eaten both, and considers 

 H. nemoralis the better of the two. Dr. Gray relates that the glass- 

 men of Newcastle-upon-Tyne indulged in a snail feast once a year, and 

 Rimmer in 1880 says the custom then still continued. In our Journal 

 (Jan., 1898) is a note by Mr. P. Lawson, in which he mentions that 

 he had then recently met a man at Teignmonth collecting land 

 molluscs, who stated that he often made his breakfast of snails 

 gathered in his morning walk, and that the excellence of these 

 molluscs had only to be more widely known for them to be appre- 

 ciated and valued as human food. 



Lovell gives a number of receipts from old books as to how to 

 dress, bake, boil, fry, and make a hash or soup of snails, and also 



