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Land Snails — Part 1

It is somewhat hard to resist buying these clean plump snails, they truly look inviting. They have a neatness of exterior not emulated by all of their kin. A creamy ground colour is decorated with three to five pale brown bands. There is a deep umbilical pit. The shell is globose or cone-shaped, of four or five rapidly widening whorls; the lip is thin, with reflexed edges; the columella long and concave. The foot is wide and fleshy, the mantle margin lobed; the head blunt with prominent stalked eyes. The average height and diameter are 1 1/2 to 2 inches. Yet we must expect a mollusk of such cosmopolitan distribution and such powers of adaptation to new conditions to exhibit great range of variation.

This snail has long been studied by conchologists, amateur and professional, and the reports of their investigations form a considerable body of literature. A great degree of intelligence is ascribed to it, including the homing instinct, which enables it to forage widely and return after each excursion to one "home" spot. Darwin reported that a pair of Roman snails, one of which was feeble, was placed in a small garden where food supply was scant. The stronger one set out alone, and found good pasture in the adjoining garden. The next day it returned and together the pair went over the wall where plenty abounded. The slimy trail of snails is probably their means of returning after a night's foraging by the same route that led them forth.

The senses of sight, smell and hearing are well developed. Snails kept as pets wander about curiously examining everything they come to with their sensitive tentacles and stalked eyes. The prominent ribbed jaw, and the remarkably complex radula of twenty-one thousand teeth in serried ranks are freely exhibited in action by a hungry Pomatia to which is presented a crisp leaf of lettuce or cabbage.

The name "Pomatia" is not from the Latin pomum, an apple, though the shape has given significance to the familiar name, apple snail. The Greek poma, a pot lid, is the root word.

In autumn the snail prepares to go into winter quarters. It burrows down among grass roots and leaf-mould until comfortably pocketed, with the mouth upward; then it makes a roof of dead leaves and other rubbish cemented with slime. Now the body is drawn into the well hidden shell, and a thick limy stopper (the pot lid), called the epiphragm, is formed by the secretion of the foot gland. This has no single air hole, for it is porous, like plaster of paris. Now the snail draws its body still further back, makes an inner, papery door, and "lies down to pleasant dreams." In spring this period of hibernation ends, and a very hungry mollusk breaks through its doors, and comes forth to feast on the young shoots of growing things. In June the peasized, chalky-shelled eggs are laid in holes dug in the ground. The number of eggs varies; probably fifty is above the average The young come out forty days after, eating for their first meal the egg shell that cramped their lusty growth at the last.

Fortunately this interesting snail breeds in captivity. In a snailery the whole life story may be watched. The simplest comforts suffice--a glass jar with floor of damp woods mould and a screened top to keep the snails in. A place outdoors in autumn insures the hibernating, which would not occur in a warm room. The growth of a flourishing snail brood is a wonderfully interesting serial story. Their food and water are easily provided.

Snail farming as a serious business thrives in the neighbourhood of large cities in France, for the French are great snail eaters. In all, nineteen species of Helix are considered edible, though the large "Roman snail," H. pomatia, is the most important, commercially. This species is rarely eaten in England, strange to say.

The modern French name, escargatoir, means "snail farm." Here is an authentic account of snail-raising for the Paris market, which consumes a hundred thousand a day on an average, the largest consumption being reached during Lent. A Parisian takes fifteen or twenty snails for breakfast. These are usually boiled in their shells, and seasoned with fresh butter, mixed with parsley and a little garlic.

This farm was visited in 1896. It then had sixty to eighty thousand snails, all alike, except that some were slightly darker than others.

The farm consists of a large meadow fenced in from the road by boards a foot high. The owner employs people to collect snails from the neighbouring woods and meadows. They bring in from one to two thousand daily, commencing about April.