116 LAND AND FRESH-WATER MOLLUSKS. 
that whatever is disgusting and nauseous, must 
necessarily be fraught with healing virtues. 
Dr. Gray writes, that “ the glassmen of New¬ 
castle once a year have a snail-feast, and that they 
generally collect the snails themselves in the 
fields and hedges the Sunday before the feast.” 
The working population of Lancashire have a 
reputation for the like custom. 
In the South of France an annual snail-feast 
is held on Ash-Wednesday, on which day there 
is a very large consumption of the very unsub¬ 
stantial and indigestible flesh of snails. Vendors 
are seen standing in the streets with great ham¬ 
pers full of Helix aspersa and II. nemoralis ; the 
former of the two is preferred. They are sold at 
the rate of 25 centimes , or 2^d., per 100. From 
seven to eight thousand of H. aspersa form 
part of the provisions of a ship leaving the port 
of Bordeaux for a long voyage. Nearly all the 
snails that constitute so important a part in the 
live stock of ships come from one commune, 
that of Cauderan, which is infested by them. 
Mr. J. G. Jeffreys, quoting Lister, writes that 
“ the fluid which exudes so copiously from the 
body of H. aspersa when pricked, was used in 
his time in bleaching wax for artistic purposes, 
as well as in making a firm cement, mixed with 
the white of an egg. - ” In the London streets I 
have frequently seen a man vending an article. 
