Animals: What Is a Snail?

Paleolithic man ate snails. So do modern Frenchmen. Every year thousands of them are plucked from trees, bushes, walls and the good soil of Burgundy, are pulled rudely out of their shells, boiled, dressed with garlic, stuffed back and served up sizzling hot on tin plates to be downed between gulps of rich red Chambertin. So delectable is the escargot that the best breeds of him are becoming scarce. To restrict snail-plucking, the Department Council of the Cote d'Or met lately at Dijon, soon found itself embroiled in a hopeless argument over...

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