424 
USES — AS FOOD. 
are not generally n.sed in this country as aliment, yet in some districts 
they are freely consumed either for nonrishment or medicinally ; in 
other and Wc\rmer countries, however, their use as food is much more 
general and comparatively small species are utilized for this purpose. 
As Food, the snail was one of the creeping things denounced in 
Scripture (Leviticus, cap. xi.) as unclean, and its use for that pur- 
pose forbidden, yet the larger kinds of testaceous land snails have been 
held in repute in all ages, even by the Chinese and Hebrews for their 
alimentary or curative properties, and the masses of Heliv shells 
found in the caverns inhabited by the primitive men of the Stone 
Age, i)robably indicate the indulgence of similar tastes by these 
savage races, while kjokkenmikldings or heaps of kitchen refuse, 
formed by countless generations of extinct pre-historic peoples, are 
found in the United States, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, 
Scotland, Ireland, England, etc. These immense mounds are some- 
times hundreds of yards in length, and largely composed of the .shells 
of edible mollnsks, bones of mammals, birds and fish, broken pottery 
and primitive implements of bone or other material, and occadonally 
contain terrestrial mollnsca, as in Denmark, in which Helix nemo- 
/•((lis is found, while IIc'Ux (i^perxii has been recorded from a neolithic 
kitchen-midden at Hastings, and from depo.sits resembling kitchen- 
middens about a mile from the present banks of the Merse}', while 
those of Florida have been noted to contain freshwater species. 
'I'he predilection of the Homans for this food is widely known, 
although this is stated to have been due, not to any special reli.sh for 
such an insipid article of diet, but to a belief in its aphrodisiacal 
virtues. The prevalence of Helicophagy among the Homans was, 
however, so universal that they not only collected snails and imported 
the more delicate and esteemed kinds from Illyria, Africa and other 
places, but bred and fattened them for the table in specially arranged 
farms or Cochlearia, a plan originated by Fulvinus Hirpinus, at 
Tar([ninium, about .'>() B.C. d'hese Cochlearia were preferably some- 
what shaded areas, encompassed by water, where in addition to the 
growing vegetation, the snails were fed upon sodden wine dregs, bran, 
Hour and vai'ious aromatic herbs, and under this generous diet they 
ac([uircd a refined tiavonr and grew to a good size. This taste is also 
evidenced by the use amongst them of an utensil, made from bone, 
silver or other material, termed a Cochleare, especially adapted for 
this purpose. This little implement had one end fashioned like an 
