FOOD FROM THE CRUSTACEANS AND MOLLUSCA. 405 



Indeed snails were a favourite dish in the London 

 restaurants when the last century was well advanced. 

 In the reign of George the Second " a ragout of fatted 

 snails " and " chickens not two hours from the shell " 

 were considered the chef d'osuvres at Pontacte's famous 

 guinea ordinary. Hogarth let no folly of his era escape 

 him. In his remarkable picture, " Taste in High Life," 

 painted in 1742, the monkey, who represents the fashion- 

 able dandy of the time, reads a bill of fare on which we 

 can read " a fricasey of snails," and from my own expe- 

 rience in snail eating, I must say that the SeUxpomatia 

 as an edible snail has no advantage save in its superior 

 size, S. nenioralis and S. aspersa, the common brown and 

 grey garden snails are equally as tender and well- 

 Havoured. 



" The late Grant Thorbum, of New York, with whom 

 I was once intimate, and who is better known as Gait's 

 ' Lawrie Todd,' bears witness in his autobiography to the 

 great benefit derived from snails by a weak sickly child. 

 Thorburn's mother died when he was barely three years 

 old, leaving the unfortunate infant to the neglect and 

 rough usage of a Scottish cottager. When ten years 

 old he could not walk, and was even then no larger than 

 an ordinary child of five years. That he might get 

 strength he was sent to one of the hiUs in Midlothian, 

 nine miles south of Edinburgh. ' This hill,' he says, 

 ' abounded with a small snail that carried a beautiful 

 shell on its back, striped, and painted. My employment 

 in the afternoon was to collect half a pint of these snails. 

 In the morning they were boiled in new milk ; the milk 

 when nearly cold was given me with oatmeal for break- 

 fast. It was very palatable. I soon regained my health 

 and spirits, but not my growth. I believe that the 

 means used to restore my health gave me an entirely 

 new constitution ; for from my twelfth year I have been 

 free from any of the hereditary complaints with which 

 my father, mother, sister, and brother were aflBicted." * 



» Sir W. Pinkerton in Tke Field. 



