Page:Natural History, Mollusca.djvu/104

 margin, when the animal is full grown, is turned outwards.

Mr. Gray, in his "Land and Fresh-water Shells of the British Islands," has enumerated twenty-six species of this genus as natives of this country and its adjacent isles. By far the finest of these is the Edible Snail (Helix pomatia), which inhabits woods and hedges in chalk districts, in the southern and midland counties of England. The shell of this fine species attains a diameter of two inches, and a height of the same; the last whorl is very large and globose, and all are strongly striated across with close-set lines; the colour is commonly pale brown, with four spiral bands of dark brown; the interior is tinged with violet.

The animal is of a pale greyish-brown, the body studded with warts, the tentacles are long, the foot dilated, marked with impressed lines, forming a network.

Among ourselves these animals are occasionally eaten, and, when properly cooked, are said to be not unpleasant to the taste. Lister tells us how they were dressed in his time. "They are boiled in spring water, and when seasoned with oil, salt, and pepper, make a dainty dish." But on the Continent, as I have before intimated, snails have been from the earliest times an admired luxury. "The