I class together these several kinds of live creatures, as they are
all “gathered” and sold by the same persons--principally by the men
who supply bird-food, of whom I have given accounts in my statements
concerning groundsel, chickweed, plaintain, and turf-selling.
The principal _snail-sellers_, however, are the turf-cutters, who are
young and active men, while the groundsel-sellers are often old and
infirm and incapable of working all night, as the necessities of the
snail-trade often require. Of turf-cutters there were, at the time of
my inquiry last winter, 42 in London, and of these full one-third are
regular purveyors of snails, such being the daintier diet of the caged
blackbirds and thrushes. These men obtain their supply of snails in the
market-gardens, the proprietors willingly granting leave to any known
or duly recommended person who will rid them of these depredators.
Seven-eighths of the quantity gathered are sold to the bird-dealers, to
whom the price is 2_d._ a quart. The other eighth is sold on a street
round at from 3_d._ to 6_d._ the quart. A quart contains at least 80
snails, not heaped up, their shells being measured along with them. One
man told me there were “100 snails to a fair quart.”
When it is moonlight at this season of the year, the snail gatherers
sometimes work all night; at other times from an hour before sunset to
the decline of daylight, the work being resumed at the dawn. To gather
12 quarts in a night, or a long evening and morning, is accounted a
prosperous harvest. Half that quantity is “pretty tidy.” An experienced
man said to me:--
“The best snail grounds, sir, you may take my word for it, is in Putney
and Barnes. It’s the ‘greys’ we go for, the fellows with the shells
on ’em; the black snails or slugs is no good to us. I think snails is
the slowest got money of any. I don’t suppose they get’s scarcer, but
there’s good seasons for snails and there’s bad. Warm and wet is best.
We don’t take the little ’uns. They come next year. I may make 1_l._ a
year, or a little more, in snails. In winter there’s hardly anything
done in them, and the snails is on the ground; in summer they’re on the
walls or leaves. They’ll keep six months without injury; they’ll keep
the winter round indeed in a proper place.”
I am informed that the 14 snail gatherers on the average gather six
dozen quarts each in a year, which supplies a total of 12,096 quarts,
or individually, 1,189,440 snails. The labourers in the gardens, I am
informed, may gather somewhat more than an equal quantity,--all being
sold to the bird-shops; so that altogether the supply of snails for the
caged thrushes and blackbirds of London is about two millions and a
half. Computing them at 24,000 quarts, and only at 2_d._ a quart, the
outlay is 200_l._ per annum.
The _Frogs_ sold by street-people are, at the rate of about 36 dozen
a year, disposed of in equal proportion to University and King’s
Colleges. Only two men collect the frogs, one for each hospital.
They are charged 1_d._ each:--“I’ve sometimes,” said one of the
frog-purveyors, “come on a place where I could have got six or seven
dozen in a day, but that’s mostly been when I didn’t want them. At
other times I’ve gone days without collaring a single frog. I only want
them four times a year, and four or five dozen at a time. The low part
of Hampstead’s the best ground for them, I think. The doctors like
big fellows. They keep them in water ’til they’re wanted to dissect.”
One man thought that there might be 50 more frogs or upwards ordered
yearly, through the bird-shops, for experiments under air-pumps, &c.
This gives about 500 frogs sold yearly by the street-people. One year,
however, I was told, the supply was larger, for a Camberwell gentleman
ordered 40 frogs to stock a watery place at the foot of his garden, as
he liked to hear and see them.
The _Toad_ trade is almost a nonentity. One man, who was confident
he had as good a trade in that line as any of his fellows, told me
that last year he only supplied one toad; in one year, he forgot the
precise time, he collected ten. He was confident that from 12 to 24 a
year was now the extent of the toad trade, perhaps 20. There was no
regular price, and the men only “work to order.” “It’s just what the
shopkeeper, mostly a herbalist, likes to give.” I was told, from 1_d._
to 6_d._ according to size. “I don’t know what they’re wanted for,
something about the doctors, I believe. But if you want any toads, sir,
for anything, I know a place between Hampstead and Willesden, where
there’s real stunners.”
_Worms_ are collected in small quantities by the street-sellers, and
very grudgingly, for they are to be supplied gratuitously to the
shopkeepers who are the customers of the turf-cutters, and snail and
worm collectors. “They expects it as a parquisite, like.” One man told
me that they only gathered ground worms for the bird-fanciers.
Of the _Snakes_ and _Hedgehogs_ I have already spoken, when treating of
the collection of birds’-nests. I am told that some few _glow-worms_
are collected.