INSTINCT, INTELLIGENCE, AND USES 139 



so much resorted to, but they have some adherents 

 among the natives of Mauritius, Guadeloupe, and 

 Cambodia ; even in France some of the freshwater 

 Mussels are eaten in certain localities. 



Land Snails have been consumed from very early 

 times. The yellow-banded Snail (Helix nemoralis) 

 figures in the kitchen-middens, and the Romans, who 

 were great snail-eaters, most probably inherited, and 

 did not initiate the custom. In France great 

 quantities of the larger Snails are eaten, and formerly 

 certain annual Snail feasts were held in the North 

 of England. Different kinds furnish repasts in 

 various parts of the world. 



How far molluscs may have been cultivated for 

 food in very early days cannot now be guessed, but 

 in Roman times a certain Sergius Orata, about 

 100 B.C., established vivaria for Oysters on the 

 Lucrine Lake, near Baiae, and obtained much 

 notoriety for his produce. To-day Oyster farms 

 are abundant in France, England, and the United 

 States. To the Romans are also due the first 

 " cochlearia," or Snail farms, invented by Fulvius 

 Herpinus, and in Central France, where the animal 

 no longer lives, masses of the shells of the Roman 

 Snail (Helix pomatia) mark the former sites of such. 

 Similar farms are in use on the continent at the 

 present day. 



Mollusca are further very largely used as bait in 

 fishing. Slugs and Snails have also figured copiously 



