Again, in the south of France and Italy you see people eating with relish the sea urchin, brought to table, like oysters, in the shell, and scooped out with a spoon. Having purchased some of these to bring home as curiosities, I could not induce the natives to believe I did not want to eat them, so they invariably cut and trimmed them for table, thus spoiling them as specimens. The trepang of the Chinese, consisting of the sea cucumber dried, most probably strongly resembles these sea urchins in flavour.

We have left to the last a favourite French and Italian dish, namely snails - in French escargots - which several writers have lately been advocating both as food and medicine. It would seem from these articles, that snails and slugs are still sought and eaten in some parts of Wiltshire, being in season only when dormant during the winter, when they are taken, soaked in salt and water, and grilled on the bars of the grate. Probably they are quite as good as the periwinkle, so greedily devoured by those who would look upon the snail with disgust, and who would reject a dish of spring cabbage, because a careless cook had allowed a slug to remain ensconced in the leaf upon which it had been feeding when consigned to the pot.

Snails and slugs - especially the latter - are supposed to be particularly efficacious as a remedy in consumption, being not only eaten, but also crushed and rubbed on the chest and back, and we have known this snail juice extolled as superior to cod-liver oil. In France the escargots are dried and prepared as a lozenge for coughs. It would appear, according to the writer of a very interesting article on the subject in the Standard, that 'in several parts of England snails are regularly eaten; not, it is true, as an ordinary article of diet, but at stated feasts, and considerable quantities are collected round London and exported to France.' But the same writer adds: - 'The Latin people are its principal friends, whilst it is rejected by all Scandinavian and Teutonic peoples. The Romans were its especial patrons. Not content with eating it stewed in every form, they fattened it in "cochlearia,' or styes, meal boiled in wine being regarded as the food best fitted for producing large and juicy specimens. How successful they were, may be inferred from the fact - if fact it be - that some of the shells of these domesticated snails would hold a pint of wine. But the trade in them is perhaps better than ever it was during the palmy days of Roman luxury. In the neighbourhood of Dijon, a small farmer has been known to clear L300 per annum from snails, the vine growers keeping them in dry cellars, or in trenches under coverings of leaves and earth; and from certain escargotieres near Ulm, in Wurtemburg, no fewer than ten millions of the vineyard snails are sent every year to other gardens to be fattened before they are dispatched for the use of the Austrian convents during Lent. From Troyes it has been calculated that snails to the value of L20,000 - the wholesale price being 4s. per hundred - are forwarded to the Paris markets. Packed in casks, they are also exported in a small way to the United States.' Would it not pay Cape Colonists to institute 'cochlearia' of the great Tiger snail for the French or Portuguese markets? Anyone who has passed through the Lisbon fruit market in autumn, must have noticed the huge baskets of snails for sale, and in Madrid and other wealthy Spanish cities as many as fifteen different kinds may sometimes be counted on the slabs of the dealers. In Italy they are equally popular, but no sooner are the Alps passed than the snail begins to disappear from the menus, until, by the time Denmark and Sweden are reached, it is never seen on the table.*

* Friends report that, having at Barcelona been served with a very tempting dish, ornamented with large snail shells, they partook of it and enjoyed it greatly, believing the snails to be still in the shells, but after having eaten the savoury morsels, they discovered they had been eating the snails, the shells being empty and used only as garnishing.

Our French neighbours have of late years suffered considerably from a scarcity of escargots, for it was found that the sulphate of iron used to destroy the phylloxera, also poisoned the snails, and rendered them wholly unfit for food, so that it became necessary to have snail farms, in order to guarantee them on the market as free from the sulphate, and consequently wholesome. 'Escargots a la mode de Burgogne' are not to be despised as a food. Stewed in butter, with eggs and savoury herbs, they might well tempt even a prejudiced English palate, but then you must not whisper snails to the eater, although snail feasts are still known to the glass-workers of Newcastle. Perhaps in these feasts the snails are conspicuous by their absence ; but in Greece, snails dressed with garlic are still a favourite dish.

Much has been written of late in recommendation of insect food, including caterpillars, cockchafers, ants, and even spiders and wire-worms.* Locusts are certainly much relished in those countries which are subject to their depredations, and we have seen boys in Germany greedily devour the cockchafer alive, first depriving it of its legs and wings, and declaring it was just like a nut. Fried white ants are also highly esteemed in some countries, and the grubs of bees are relished even by Englishmen, but we think some considerable time must elapse before we adopt of free will the articles of diet of which we have been writing. Siege and famine might reconcile us to some of them, but as long as we can get beef, mutton, and pork, eggs, poultry, and game, economists may write and reason as long as they please - they will not induce a score of English men and women to sit down to a dish of snails and caterpillars, frogs or mice; and even horseflesh, which is, we are told, beginning to find its way into the English market, will continue to be regarded by the vast majority as food fit only for dogs and cats.