400 ANIMAL FOOD RESOURCES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 



the host and his daughter sucked the moUusks out of 

 their shells. 



A century ago, some 4,000,000 snails were annually- 

 exported from Ulm in " kegs " of 10,000, fetching from 

 25 to 40 florins a keg. In Tyrol youngsters of both 

 sexes are employed during the summer months collecting 

 snails as stock for the snail gardens— small plots of land 

 cleared of trees, and covered with heaps of moss and 

 pine twigs, and separated from each other by moats, 

 having gratings at their outlets, to prevent any truants 

 that may get into the water from being carried beyond 

 bounds. The prisoners are supplied daily with fresh 

 grass and cabbage-leaves, until their appetites fail, and 

 they retire into the moss heaps for their winter's sleep, 

 the last one they will enjoy; for when spring comes, 

 they are routed out of their beds, packed into straw- 

 lined boxes and sent to market. In a favourable season, 

 one of these gardens will turn out 40,000 snails. The 

 consumption of them in the South Tyrol is great ; the 

 Italians and Tyrolese are not the only people who appre- 

 ciate the merits of these clean-feeding mollusks ; in Paris, 

 Burgundian snails are worth one halfpenny apiece, and 

 £500 worth of snails are disposed of in the markets in 

 the course of a year. Indeed a special portion of the 

 market has been allotted for the sale of snails. 



In the canton of Appenzel, Switzerland, they raise 

 and fatten snails, of which large consignments are made 

 to Vienna to be consumed in Lent. The provinces of 

 Burgundy and Provence are also places of its culti- 

 vation. Throngs of women and children scour the 

 country, collecting the snails in immense numbers, 

 and depositing them in little tracts of land, enclosed 

 with simply a trail of sawdust. This last the snail 

 hates ; he cannot Cross it, and avoids its vicinity 

 as a matter of preference. Therefore, for his confine- 

 ment it is as good as a stone wall. After incarceration 

 for two or three days, he is permitted to starve, and 

 then the plot is laid out in patches of turf intersected 

 by paths of sand. Above, boards are hung to serve as 



