432 
SUPERSTITIONS. 
cloaks worn by women of rank, while the large Biil/ml are worn as 
breast ornaments ami for other purposes. In the Island of Iona, Helix 
itala and Helix (icuta are strung together to form necklaces, and at 
Bundoran, in Donegal, and elsewhere. Helix neinomUs is similarly 
employed, a practice regarded by Mr. Welch as a survival of a 
prehistoric custom. The primitive men of the stone age probably 
also adorned themselves with similar ornaments, as is testified by the 
pierced shells of various species found in the caverns they frequented 
in South-Western France, among which numei’ous shells of Viviparu 
lentil are found, probably procured from the Isle of Wight, where they 
are now so abundant in a fossil state. 
From the earliest times preparations have been made from snails, 
which were believed to be beneficial to the complexion, and compara- 
tively recently the licpiid procured from them by distillation was used 
by ladies to give whiteness and freshness to the complexion. 
Superstitious reverence, in one form or another, has been accorded 
to the mollusca by the more ignorant and credulous people of every 
age, due to the emblematic exaltation of certain forms as symbolic of 
the vital phase of religious faith, or to the imaginery popular belief 
ill their efficacy as charms or amulets to ward off or protect the wearer 
from injury or di.sease. 
In ancient times the Egyptians venerated the Scarabieus or Sacred 
Beetle as typifying in its life-history the resurrection, and in like 
manner the (Jauls and Ancient Britons reverenced the Snail, as a visible 
emblem or symbol of our resurrection and immortality, the image of 
a shell .so often found .sculptured within the ancient Gallic tombs, 
being emblematically expressive of the belief of these primitive people 
in man’s resurrection and immortal life, and jiossibly the presence of 
Helix shells in ancient Briti.sh burrows and tumuli may have some 
similar significance. 
The Romans habitually ate snails at their funeral repasts around 
the tombs of those dear to them or at those of persons whose memory 
they wished to honour, the evidence of the prevalence of this custom 
is found in the masses of shells strewn about the cemeteries of 
Pompeii. This incorporation of the snail among their funeral cere- 
monies being probably a relic of the still older belief in the existence 
of some mysterious link between the grave, silent snail and the spirit 
of their ancestors, a superstition probably originating from the circum- 
stance of finding snails living within the vaults of their forefathers, 
