Only once have I experienced the doubtful pleasure of feasting on snails steeped in garlic butter.

That was many years ago on the Continent, but watching the army of hungry molluscs chomping through my choice garden plants this year makes me wish that their natural predators, such as song thrushes and hedgehogs, were around in greater numbers to exercise some control.

I have no desire to eat garden snails but apparently they are quite palatable and may have been introduced by the Romans at the same time as the true edible or Roman' snail, but this is not certain.

The long-lived edible snail is unmistakable, being large with a thick creamy coloured shell and it can be found quite commonly on chalk downland in Surrey. Boxhill is a favoured location and empty shells are frequently seen bleached chalky-white, looking like errant golf balls lying on the turf.

A small colony was recently discovered on Wimbledon Common, which is somewhat surprising as the soil is acidic, a type not normally associated with the species, so was the snail introduced or has it existed there undetected for many years?

Eighty species of land snail live in Britain with a few more inhabiting fresh water.

I consider two species, the dark lipped and white-lipped snails to be most attractive as they remind me of old-fashioned peppermint flavoured black and white striped humbug sweets. Very common locally, they vary greatly in intensity of colouration from pale yellow to green, brown, grey and black with anything from one to five narrow bands encircling their glossy shells.

As a food item they are much sought after by woodland rodents but not, in this case, by humans.

November 19, 2001 15:30