Supplements to the History. 50

1 & 4. The Sweet Hoof of the Apothecaries. 2 & 5. The False Sweet Hoof. 3 & 6. The True Sweet Hoof.

To gain an accurate understanding of these "sweet hooves," it should be noted that the true sweet hoof is rarely encountered in apothecary shops. The one depicted in the first illustration is no wider than half a pinky finger and possesses fine markings; its underside is concave and features lines or ridges extending from the center to the edge, as seen in figure 4.

Furthermore, one sometimes finds another variety of sweet hoof at these same apothecaries, which we might call the "narrower false-hoof"; it is marked with transverse lines, as shown in figures 2 and 5.

Thus, the aforementioned "sweet hooves" are actually false, as they are merely the opercula of a certain type of snail that opens and closes its shell. The genuine sweet hoof, however, is indeed an operculum, but it belongs to that specific shell-fish we discussed earlier. It measures two fingers in width and a lon—