Benefits, 261 



the juice of shelled snails, though they were, and perhaps are, 

 remedies in use among the lower orders, owing their popu- 

 larity to a vulgar creed, that whatever is digusting and nauseous 

 must necessarily be fraught with healing virtues. 



But, if poor in medicines of real efficacy, molluscous ani- 

 mals furnish several which are powerful through a super- 

 stitious faith. In South America, the Pietros des los Oozes, 

 which are worn fragments of shells, are believed to be endowed 

 with a sort of intelligence in removing extraneous bodies from 

 the eyes, and are in consequence looked upon as something 

 very wonderful. * The druggists of Venice sell the testaceous 

 operculum of a species of Turbo, the Umbilicus Veneris, as 

 they call it, to cure the cramp, which it does miraculously, by 

 being tied to the limb. In England the rustic maiden can 

 read her fortune in the meanders of a snail : — 



" Last May-day fair I search'd to find a snail. 

 That might my secret lover's name reveal. 

 Upon a gooseberry bush a snail I found, 

 For always snails near sweetest fruit abound. 

 I seized the vermin, home I quickly sped, 

 And on the hearth the milk-white embers spread. 

 Slow crawl'd the snail ; and, if I right can spell. 

 In the soft ashes mark'd a curious L. 

 Oh ! may this wondrous omen lucky prove I 

 For L is found in Lubberkin and Love." Gay. 



And, in my younger days, I remember the country school- 

 boy, while strolling, with satchel on his back, from his hamlet 

 to the neighbouring village, would stay to solicit, by doggerel 

 rhymes, the black slug (Z/imax ater) to protrude its horns; 

 and, having seized them according to the prescribed rules, 

 would go on his way with a gayer heart and elevated hopes. 

 Ay, and I have envied the better fortune of my fellow who 

 could tell, by the sounding of his whelk, of storms at sea, and 

 of the fluxes of the tide ! For, with Wordsworth, I have 

 seen 



" A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract 

 Of inland ground, applying to his ear 

 The convolutions of a smooth-lipp'd shell ; 

 To which, in silence hush'd, his very soul 

 Listen' d intensely, and his countenance soon 

 Brighten' d with joy ; for murmurings from within 

 Were heard, — sonorous cadences whereby, 

 To his belief, the monitor express'd 

 Mysterious union with its native sea." 



These notices you may think trifling, and somewhat out of 

 place ; but I have ever taken an interest in the superstitious 



* The same superstition is said to prevail in Guernsey. 



