HELICIDjE. — SNAIL. 9 



Again, that a kind of small, white, elongated snail, 

 dried upon tiles in the sun and reduced to powder, then 

 mixed with bean-meal in equal proportions, forms a cos- 

 metic for whitening and softening the skin. 



I have been told that a large trade in snails is carried 

 on for Covent Garden market in the Lincolnshire Fens, 

 and that they are sold at 6d. per quart, and upon further 

 inquiry I find that snails are still much used for con- 

 sumptive patients and weakly children ; also as salves for 

 corns put between ivy leaves ; and as food for birds. la 

 the manufacture of "cream" they are also much em- 

 ployed, bruised in milk and boiled, and a "retired" 

 milkman pronounced it the most successful imitation 

 known. 



It appears that not only are the Helicidce nourishing 

 to the human species, but that they have a beneficial 

 effect upon sheep, giving a richness to the flavour of the 

 mutton. Mr. Jeffreys, in his 'British Conchology,^ quotes 

 the following passage from Borlase's ' Natural History of 

 Cornwall :' — " The sweetest mutton is reckoned to be 

 that of the smallest sheep, which usually feed on the 

 commons where the sands are scarcely covered with the 

 green-sod, and the grass exceedingly short ; such are 

 the towens or sand-hillocks in Piran-sand, Gwythian, 

 Philne, and Senan Green, near the Land's End, and else- 

 where in like situations. From these sands come forth 

 snails of the turbinated kind, but of difl'erent species, 

 and all sizes, from the adult to the smallest just irom 

 the egg ; these spread themselves over the plains early 

 in the morning, and whilst they are in quest of their 

 own food among the dews, yield a most fattening nourish- 

 ment to the sheep." 



Birds also are great eaters of snails. Lister mentions 



