Snail

Has The Giant

A Food Value?

SUFFERERS from “Giant snails” in New Britain, New Ireland, New Guinea (Madang area) and some of the islands of Micronesia (brought in by the Japanese in 1942-44) will be interested in the following article in the March issue of “Corona” (the new British Colomal Office publication):— In 1947 the Botanical Department of the Hongkong Government collected and destroyed over ten thousand pounds of “Giant African” snails. The scientists tell us that Achatina fulica reached Mauritius from East Africa a century ago.

India by 1910, Sarawak by 1928, and the mainland of China by 1948—a Snail’s Progress. We are, however, also told that the snails made a “dramatic appearance” in Hongkong in 1941.

The Japanese ate them. In Africa these snails, or others —and a Giant by any other name should taste as sweet —are collected by the ton each year. But they are not destroyed, they are sold expen sively on delicatessen stalls in all the local markets. The Japanese ate them. The Africans do it. The French, thank God, do it. Why then do the hardworking Chinese labourers of the Hongkong- Botanical Department destroy them?