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The Oyster Girl

(347) the custom of ostracism-that is, sending beds; in eighteen months they are fit for political delinquents to that place where use. The spawning takes place in May, they can get no more Oysters." after which, for a time, the Oysters are sick, and unfit for food. The young Oys- Immense Oyster Beds. power of contraction in the foot.

Thus the Oyster has its literature, and, ter usually fixes itself to some rock, however deficient in wit itself, it is cer- and remains stationary for life; some, tainly the occasion of wit in others. The however, are free. These can move by a positive history of this mollusk goes back to the refined Athenians, who held it in Oysters breathe by means of branchiæ high esteem as dainty food. The Romans or gills. They draw the water in at their also prized it, and as early as the second mouth, which is a small opening in the century they had adopted the practice of upper part of the body, drive it down a cultivating it in beds. Great Britain, so long canal that constitutes the base of remarkable for its other fisheries, excels gills, and so out again, retaining the air all European countries in the production for the necessary functions of the body. of Oysters. They are found on most of Thus their ejecting the water seems to the British and Irish shores, but those of serve the double purpose of aiding the Essex and Suffolk are esteemed the best. motion of such as are free, and of supply- There are numerous artificial beds, where ing the animals with air. Oysters fix immense quantities are fed and fattened. themselves on the left side, which is the The Oysters are of various sizes and deep or concave side of the shell; in this qualities, owing to difference of treatment manner they repose. The two shells, as and locality. Those on the coast of in other bivalves, are connected by a France, especially those of Dieppe, as powerful ligament, called the "adductor well as many of the British Oysters, have muscle." By this they open and close the a greenish tinge, and also a coppery taste; valves; when the animal dies this muscl it has been supposed, therefore, that they is relaxed, and the shells gape open. were impregnated with copper. This has been shown to be a mistake; the green The ocean is not, like the mountains, color is caused by the Oysters feeding on an accident on the surface of the earth; minute plants called conferva, which grow it is a world two and a half times as large in certain localities. The coppery taste as our own, if we consider only its surface, is natural to the European species, and is and it envelopes ours on every side. It is esteemed a relishing quality to those who a world which nourishes legions of are accustomed to it. Americans are at strange beings in its depth, in its vast first disgusted with it. In Europe the coral forests. It is a world which man, Oyster is rarely cooked, but is served raw, it being esteemed more wholesome, and of higher relish in this condition.

Vast Forests in the Sea. after so many centuries, at the cost of so many sacrifices, scarcely begins to know, far from having conquered it.

With a microscope immense numbers Like to the great gods of the ancient of the young Oysters, with their shells, barbarians of the North and the East, the may be discovered in the parents-three ocean-a greedy and terrible powerto five thousand in each. When produced makes us pay every year by hundreds of these are called spats; when quite small, human lives for the favors it bestows they are taken and placed in the planting upon us. How many has the enormous