"for a place suitable for keeping snails[195] I must be not only
in the open air but entirely surrounded by water, otherwise you will
be kept running not only after the children but also the parents which
you have supplied for breeding."

"In other words," said I, "they must be enclosed by water to save the
maintenance of a slave catcher."

"A place which is not baked by the sun and on which the dew remains is
preferable," continued Merula. "If the place you use for your snails
is not supplied with dew naturally, as often is the case in sunny
situations, and there is no available shady recess, such as is found
under rocks or hills whose feet are laved by a lake or a stream, then
you must supply dew artificially. This may be done by leading into the
snailery a pipe on the end of which is fixed a rose nozzle, through
which water is forced against a rock so that it scatters in spray. The
problem of feeding snails is small, for they supply themselves without
help, finding what they require as they creep over the level ground
and also while clinging to the sides of a wall, if no running water
prevents their access to it. On the hucksters' stands they keep alive
a long time, as it were chewing their own cud, all that is done for
them being to supply a few laurel leaves and scatter a little bran
over them: so a cook never knows whether he is cooking them alive or
dead.

"There are many kinds of snails, such as the small white ones, which
come from Reate: the large variety which are imported from Illyricum,
and the medium size which come from Africa: but they vary in size in
certain localities of each of those countries. Thus, there is found in
Africa a variety which are called _solitannae_ of so great size that
their shells will hold ten quarts:[196] and so in the other countries
I have named they are found together of all sizes. They produce an
innumerable progeny, which at first are very small and soft but
develop their hard shell with time. If you have large islands in the
enclosure you may expect a rich haul from your snails.

"Snails are fattened by placing them in a jar smeared with boiled must
and corn meal, on which they feed, and pierced with holes to admit the
air, but they are naturally hardy."

_Of dormice_

XV. "Dormice[197] are preserved on a different systern than snails, for
while the one is confined by barriers of water, the other is kept in
by a wall which must be coated on the inside with smooth sto