Anecdotes

THE SNAILS THAT THE SWINE DID EAT

Kalm¹ discussed with Ellis²  the problem of snails, which, he says, 'cause great damage on arable fields and meadows. Mr. Ellis showed me yesterday a letter which he had received from a learned and experienced gentleman, who had a great taste for Rural Economy, in which letter this gentleman relates that when he succeeded to his estate after his father's death, there was found on a brick wall, a dreadful lot of snails.

'In the morning before sunrise they were out on the grass and ploughed fields, here they did great damage. On one occasion he remarked that when the swine were turned out in the morning, and came to pass close to this wall, they left all other food and began only to seek for and eat these snails. From this, he concluded to send out boys in the morning, while the dew still lay, and collect them in baskets, and attempt to give them to the swine at home, when he had the pleasure of seeing how greedily the pigs ate them as if they had been their choicest food.' The swine 'not only became astonishingly fat, so that their hair fell off them, but ....when killed, the flesh was found to be of the best possible flavour.'

From Peter Kalm, Visit to England, 1748, trans. Lucas (Macmillan 1892), quoted by Vicars Bell in To Meet Mr. Ellis, p.60 (Faber & Faber 1956).

¹ Peter Kalm (1715-1779), Swedish botanist and friend of Linnaeus.
²  William Ellis (d.1758) of Little Gaddesden, Herts.

(from A. E. Ellis)

(Extracted from Conchologists' Newsletter No. 29, p. 97)

SNAIL-EATING SHEEP

The quotation from Peter Kaim referring to pigs eating snails (Conchologists' Newsletter No. 29, p.97), calls to mind the following references to sheep with the same taste.

(1)  "Their Sheep thrive exceedingly, the Grass on their Commons being short and dry, and full of the same little Snail which gives so good a relish to the Sennan and Phillac Mutton in the West of Cornwall. The Sheep will fill themselves upon the Ore-weed as well as the Bullocks."
Borlase, W., 1756. "Observations on the ancient and present state of the Isles of Scilly," p.52. Oxford.

(2)  "In the neighbourhood of St. Columb, in Rosland, and St. Kevern, their sheep are large, and bring a great price, but the sweetest mutton is reckoned to be that of the smallest sheep, which usually feed on the commons where the sands are scarce covered with the green-sod, and the grass exceedingly short; such are the towans or sand-hillocks in Piran-sand, Gwythien, Philac, and Senan-green near the Land's-End, and elsewhere in like situations. From these sands come forth snails of the turbinated kind, but of different species, and all sizes from the adult to the smallest just from the egg; these spread themselves over the plains early in the morning, and whilst they are in quest of their own food among the dews, yield a most fatning nourishment to the sheep."
Borlase, W., 1758. "The Natural History of Cornwall," p.286. Oxford.

There is a reference to pigs eating limpets in the Rev. George Woodley, "A view of the present state of the Scilly islands" etc., p.79 (London & Truro, 1822):
"Of hogs there are great numbers on all the principal Islands; but such of those animals as belong to the poor are in general fed on ore-weed, limpets etc. which gives the flesh a disagreeable redness, and a very unpalateable, fishy taste."

Note: in the above extracts the spelling is as in the originals.
Stella M. Turk

(Extracted from Conchologists' Newsletter No. 31, p. 123)