WE were keeping some snails (Helix pomatia} without food, under a bell-jar with a wide tubulure at the top ; in the tubulure was a cork bearing a thermometer. We found that the snails ate the cork ...

The mollusc, whose scientific name is helix pomatia, has been a protected species in France since 1979 to save it from extinction. The vast majority of the several thousand tonnes of snails eaten ...