398 ANIMAL FOOD BESOURCES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 



and America, are highly relished. The Romans already 

 valued the cochleana and fattened them until they reached 

 truly gigantic dimensions. Horace informs us they 

 were served up broiled upon silver gridirons to give a 

 relish to wine 



Many are familiar with the passage in Pliny {Hist. 

 lib. ix., c. 56), who, on the authority of Yaxvo, relates 

 the incredible size to which the art of fattening had 

 brought the snails. Even assuming the snails were 

 African Achatina or Bulimi, there must, one should 

 think, be some mistake in the text, which says, " Cujus 

 artis gloria in eam magnitudinem peirducta sit, ut oc- 

 toginta quadrantes caperent singularem calices." Pen- 

 nant, referring to this and to Varro {De Re Rusticd) says, 

 " If we should credit Varro, they grew so large that the 

 shells of some would hold ten quarts ! " 



But this is a misapprehension, the quadrans referred 

 to being a small copper coin f of an inch in diameter 

 about the size of a sixpence and -^ of an inch thick. 



Shortly before the outbreak of the civil war with 

 Pompey, Fluvius Hii'pinus was the first in the Tarquinian 

 district to establish snail ponds. He arranged them in 

 separate divisions; one for the white snails from Reatine, 

 one for the Illyrian snails, distinguished by their great 

 size, one for the African snails, which are very fruitful, 

 and another for the Solitanian snails, which are the 

 finest of all. He even invented a special kind of food 

 for them, prepared of thick must, flour, and other ingre- 

 dients, and by means of this artificial diet, they grew to 

 an enormous size. The ancients knew how to prepare 

 even sea urchins and star fish as dainty dishes. 



The Capucins of Lorraine also carried on this industry 

 of fattening snails. 



The large Roman or edible snail is renowned both as 

 a delicacy and on account of its reputed virtues as a 

 remedy in cases of consumption, which it is said has in 

 several instances been entirely cured by a regimen of 

 the mucilage from these snails. On the Continent" the 

 Roman snail is considered a great delicacy; but the 



