HELICIDiE. 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 Coven t Garden market in the Lincolnshire Lens, 
and that they are sold at Qd. 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. In 
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 Helicidee nourishing 
to the human species, but that they have a beneficial 
effect upon sheep, giving a richness to the flavour of the 
muttun. 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 Landes End, and else- 
where in like situations. From these sands come forth 
snails of the turbinated kind, but of diflerent species, 
and all sizes, from the adult to the smallest just from 
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 
