42G 
USES — AS POOD. 
white colour. Towimls Sei)teinber the snails burrow into and hide 
among, st the moss with the aperture upward and closed by the cal- 
careous winter epiphragm. In this condition they can be exported 
and are worth 17 francs per 1,000 ; some, however, do not form 
epiphragms and, as they must be used more quickly, only realise 10 
francs per 1,000. Paris alone is said to consume fifty tons daily 
when in season, the most esteemed kinds coming chiefiy from Dau- 
phin4 and Burgundy. 
Snail eating is also very prevalent in Spain, where snails are 
recognized articles of commerce, the women who deal in them, known 
as Caracoles (from Caracole, a snail) congregate in the Snail market 
with their baskets of snails before them, crying their wares and 
occasionally cracking a .shell with their teeth to convince buyers of 
the (juality. 
In more remote countries many species belonging to genera not 
generally considered edible in Europe, are consumed as articles of 
food, Xeritina by the inhabitants of Mauritius and Guadeloupe, 
and Ciiiuiies and XerltiiKc by the natives of the Solomon Isles, 
Vivipanc by those of Cambodia, Balimi by the New Caledonians, 
while Anodonta edtdis is regularly reared for food by the Chinese in 
the ditches of Song-Kiang-Fou. 
In this country, although several species of marine mollusca are 
universally used and more or less highly valued as dainty or appe- 
tising food, the non-marine species are not nearly so generally utilized 
for the purpose, probably on account of the greater insipidity of their 
tlesh. In some parts of the British Isles, more especially in the 
western districts, Ileli.v aspcrsa is, however, held in good repute as an 
excellent article of diet. The glass-blowers and others about Bristol, 
Knottingley, in Yorkshire, and other places, not only use Helix aspersa 
for food but consider it a cure for consumption, and so great is the 
demand that in Bristol it furnishes a somewhat regular occupation 
to gather them, as in summer, when considered unfit for human food, 
they are used as food for ducks. Dr. Gray records that the glass- 
workers of Newcastle formerly held an annual snail-feast, collecting 
the snails them.selves the Sunday before the feast, and the working- 
men of Lancashire had the reputation of indulging in a similar 
custom. 
The Unionidoc generally are considered edible in some districts and 
are eagerly consumed in the i)oorer districts of Southern Europe, 
