Chapter XII: ACEPHALOUS MOLLUSCA--continued (2)

Among modern celebrities whose love of oysters is recorded, we may mention Louis XI., who feasted the learned doctors of the Sorbonne once a year on oysters. Another Louis invested his cook with an order of nobility, in reward for his skill in cooking them. Cervantes loved oysters, although he satirized oyster dealers. Marshal Turgot used to eat a hundred or two just to whet his appetite. Rousseau, Helvetius, Diderot, the Abbé Raynal, and Voltaire, are recorded lovers of oysters. Danton, Robespierre, and other of the revolutionists, frequented the oyster _salons_ of Paris. Cambaceres was famous for his oyster feasts, and it is recorded of the great Napoleon that he always partook of the bivalve on the eve of his great battles, when they could be procured.

In short, it has been demonstrated as a gastronomic truth that there is no feast worthy of a connoisseur where oysters do not come to the front. It is their office to open the way by that gentle excitement which prepares the stomach for its sublime function, digestion; in a word, the oyster is the key of that paradise called appetite. "There is no alimentary substance, not even excepting bread, which does not produce indigestion under given circumstances," says Reveille-Parise, "but oysters never." This is an homage which is due to them: "We may eat them to-day, to-morrow, eat them always, and in profusion, without fear of indigestion." Dr. Gastaldi could swallow, we are assured, his forty dozen with impunity--quite a bank must he have eaten. He was unfortunately struck with apoplexy at table before a _paté de foie gras_.

Montaigne quaintly says, to be subject to colic, or deny oneself oysters, presents two evils to choose from, since one must choose between the two, and hazard something for his pleasure.

England has always been famous for its oysters, and its pearls are said to have been the chief incentive to Cæsar's invasion. It is not, therefore, to be supposed that British magnates could be indifferent to the "native." But the bivalve has perhaps been more celebrated, in prose and verse, north of the Tweed than south, where silent enjoyment is more relished than noisy demonstration. Dugald Stewart, Hume, Cullen, and other Scotch philosophers of the last centuries, had their "oyster ploys" as an accompaniment to their "high jinks," in the quaint and dingy taverns of the old town of Edinburgh; and what the bivalve has been to modern celebrities let the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_ tell.

The oyster may thus be said to be the palm and glory of the table. It is considered the very perfection of digestive aliment. From Stockholm to Naples, from London to St. Petersburg, it is always in request. At St. Petersburg they cost a paper rouble (nearly one shilling), and at Stockholm fivepence each. For the last year or two the English amphitryon must pay from two shillings to half a crown a dozen for choice natives.

For his daily nourishment a man of middle size requires a quantity of food equal to twelve ounces of dry nitrogenized substance. According to this calculation, it would be necessary to swallow sixteen dozen of oysters to make up the necessary quantity. The small proportion of nutritive matter explains the extreme digestibility of the oyster. It also explains the immense consumption of them attributed to the Emperor Vitellius. The oyster is nothing more than water slightly gelatinized. Without this Vitellius, all emperor and master of the world as he was, never could have absorbed twelve hundred oysters by way of whetting his appetite.

The gourmets were long of opinion that the quadrangular pad or cushion in the bivalve was the most savoury and exciting part. Certain distinguished amateur performers adopted and proclaimed the principle of dividing transversely the body of the mollusc, and eating the cushion only. Natural history explains this gastronomical discovery. It recognizes the fact that the bile secreted by the liver is contained in this substance, that it accelerates while it exhausts the qualitative surface of the tongue and palate, aiding also the functions of the stomach.

* * * * *

We have described the organization of the oyster, and we have said something of the enjoyment it confers. Did it ever occur to the various Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to consider whether the oyster might not be a very proper object of their care? Let us see if we can bridge over the gulf.

We commence operations upon them by dragging them violently from their own element. We place them out afterwards in water-parks, more or less briny and unsuitable, filled with villainous green matter, which presently pervades their breathing apparatus, impregnating, obstructing, and colouring it; the oyster swells, fattens, and soon attains that state of obesity which verges on sickness.

When the poor creature has attained its livid green colour, it is fished up a second time. Alas! it is now doomed neither to return to the sea, to the park, nor to its native rock. It has water at its disposal only in the very small quantity which it can retain between its two valves, a quantity scarcely sufficient to keep away asphyxia. It is shut up in an obscure narrow basket--an ignoble prison-house, without door or window. It seems to be forgotten that they are animals: they are piled upon the pavement like inert merchandise. The basket is carried by railway; the animal, shaken out of existence almost, is at last landed at the door of some oyster-shop; and this is the critical moment for the poor bivalve! It is thrown into a tub with clean water enough to remind it of its former luxurious life, when it is again seized by the pitiless master of its fate. With a great knife he brutally opens the shell, cuts through the muscle by which it adheres to the valve, and violently detaches it, after breaking the hinges. It is now laid out on a plate, exposed to every current of air, and in this state of suffering it is carried to the table. There the pitiless gourmet powders it over with the most pungent pepper, squeezes over the wounded and still bleeding body the abomination of its race in the shape of citric acid or vinegar, and then, alas! with a silver knife which cannot cut, he wounds and bruises it a second time; or, worse still, he saws and tears and rends it from its remaining shell; he seizes it with a three-pronged fork, which is driven through liver and stomach, and throws it into his mouth, where the teeth cut, crush, and grind it, and, while still living and palpitating, reduced to an inanimate mass, these organs first triturate it, while our gourmet is drinking its blood, its fat, and its bile.

We have said that oysters have no head, no arms--that they are without eyes (although that is disputed), without ears, and without nose; that they do not stir--that they never cry!

Agreed, perfectly agreed; but all these negatives do not prevent its being sensible to pain. Two eminent Germans, Herren Brandt and Ratzeburg, have proved that they possess a well-developed nervous system, and if they possess sensation they must suffer. "Can an animal with nerves be impassible?" asks Voltaire. "Can we suppose any such impossible contradiction in Nature?"

There is consolation, however, for all concerned. Let the humanitarian fishermen, oyster-dredgers, merchants, and consumers, console themselves with the vast difference between the helpless imperfect mollusc and the higher classes of animals. In the case of the former we swallow the animal, scarcely thinking of its animal nature. It is the denizen of another element, lives in a medium in which we cannot exist, presents itself in a form, so to speak, degraded--an obscure vitality, motions undecided, and habits scarcely discernible. We may therefore see the oyster mutilated, mutilate them oneself, grind them, and swallow them, without emotion or remorse.

A learned naturalist dwelling on the sea-shore possessed himself one day of a dozen oysters. He wished to study their organization; he turned them, and turned them again, examined their several parts inside and out. He made drawings of and described them, and, having satisfied himself that he had exhausted Science in observing, he swallowed them; the interesting bivalves had lost nothing of their excellence, and the examination did not prejudice the consummation.

* * * * *

Oyster fishing is pursued in a very different manner in different countries. Round Minorca, divers, with hammers attached to the right hand, descend to the depth of a dozen fathoms, and bring up in their left hand as many of the bivalves as they can carry, two fishermen, usually associating for the purpose, diving alternately until the boat is filled. On the English and French coasts the dredge is employed, as represented in PL. XII. This operation is necessary to keep down vegetation, which would stifle the oysters; the engine is of iron, and is very heavy. It is thrown overboard, and descends to the bottom of the sea, which it ploughs and scrapes up, detaching the oysters, and throwing them into a net attached to the dredge. In this process oysters, large and small, are torn from their native bed, some going into the net, but a larger number, old and young, are torn from their native bed, and buried in the mud. It would be difficult to imagine a more destructive process; and when the habits of the oyster are considered, it is evidently one admirably contrived to destroy the race.

In France oyster dredging is conducted by fleets of thirty or forty boats, each carrying four or five men. At a fixed hour, and under the surveillance of a coastguard in a pinnace bearing the national flag, the flotilla commences the fishing. In the estuary of the Thames the practice is much the same, although no official surveillance is observed. Each bark is provided with four or five dredges, resembling in shape a common clasp purse. It is formed of network, with a strong iron frame, as represented in Fig. 172, the iron frame serving the double purpose of acting as a sucker, and keeping the mouth open, while giving it a proper pressure as it travels over the oyster-beds. When the boat is over the oyster scarp, the dredge is let down, and no more attractive sight exists than that presented by the well-appointed Whitstable boats on one side of the estuary, or the Colne boats on the other, as they wear and tack over the oyster-beds, bearing up from time to time to haul in the dredge, and empty its contents into the hold. The tension of the rope is the signal for hauling in, and very heterogeneous are the contents--sea-weeds, star-fishes, lobsters, crabs, actinia, and stones. In this manner the common oyster fields on both sides of the Channel were ploughed up by the oyster dredger pretty much as the ploughman on shore turns up a field. The consequence was that, twenty years ago, the French beds were totally exhausted, and France had to look to foreign countries for its oyster. Oyster farms which had employed fourteen hundred men and two hundred boats were reduced to two hundred men and twenty boats. Similar results from over-dredging would have followed, no doubt, on this side the Channel had the mollusc not been protected by the company and private proprietors who held the oyster-beds in the large estuaries. This state of things in France led to some important discoveries in the science of oyster culture, which have produced important changes there.

The name of Sergius Orata has already been mentioned as a cultivator of oysters. He lived in the fifth century before our era, and according to Pliny he first attempted parking oysters at Baia in the times of the orator Lucius Crassus. He was the first to recognise the superior flavour of the oysters of the Lucrin Lake, the Avernus of the poets, probably for trade reasons of his own, for then, as now, Reveille-Parise remarks, writing on the subject, "tradesmen speculated on the weaknesses of human gourmandism." But Sergius really created a new industry, which is still practised in thousands of places much as he left it. As a proof of the perfection to which Sergius had brought oyster culture, his contemporaries said of him, in allusion to the hanging banks which he invented, that if he had been prevented from raising oysters in the Lucrin Lake, "he would have made them grow on the house-tops." The traveller who visits this celebrated lake finds only a miry puddle. The precious oysters placed there by Catiline's grandfather are replaced by a host of miserable eels, which leap in the mud; vile mountains of ashes, coal, and pumice-stone, which was thrown up in a night like the mushroom, having reduced the once celebrated lake into the state described.

Rondeletius also speaks of a fisherman who understood the art of oyster culture.

The Neapolitan Lake Fusaro--the terrible Acheron of the poets--is a great oyster-park, in which Art is made effectually to aid Nature in the multiplication of its products. This famous oyster-bank, which is represented in PL. XIII., lies in the neighbourhood of Baia and Cumæ. It forms one of the most interesting spots in that beautiful bay. In the month of February, 1865, M. Figuier tells us he traversed its celebrated coast, seated himself on the banks of the historical lake, and tasted the produce of this curious manufacture of living beings, whose origin dates from the Roman period.

Lake Fusaro was in ancient times a place of evil report: Virgil immortalized it as the mythological Acheron; but its landscape had nothing of the sadness and desolation which accords with the sojourn of the dead. It is a salt pond, shaded with a girdle of magnificent trees. It is about a league in circumference, and about a fathom in depth at its deepest part; its bottom is muddy and black, like the rest of this volcanic region.

It will be understood, from what has been said, that the chief obstacle to the reproduction of oysters is the absence of any solid body to which the young spawn can attach itself, and the means of shelter from animals which prey upon them. The fishermen living on the shores of Lake Fusaro have long realized this, and provided against it by warehousing, as it were, in the lake near the sea, the oysters ready to discharge their spawn, while retaining the young generations captive in the protected basins, where they are sheltered from various causes of destruction to which oysters are exposed in the open sea.

Upon the bottom of the lake, and on its circumference, the proprietors of Fusaro have constructed hillocks here and there, with stones heaped up, artificial rocks, raised sufficiently to shelter the depôts from mud and slime. Upon these rocks they deposit the young oysters gathered in the Gulf of Tarentum. Each of these rock-works is surrounded by a girdle of piles, driven close to each other, and raised a little above the surface of the water, as represented in Fig. 173. Other piles are distributed in long lines, and bound to each other by a cord, from which are suspended fagots of young wood. In the spawning season the oysters which have been deposited on the artificial rocks discharge the myriads of young fry which have been nurtured in the folds of their mantles. The fagots suspended from the piles arrest the germ before it is driven away by the waves, much as a swan attaches itself to the first shrub which comes in the way. By these precautions the riverains of Fusaro have provided for the preservation of the young fry, besides removing many of the natural enemies of the young oyster.

In other places the piles are distributed in long lines and bound together by strong cords, from which fagots of brushwood are suspended, on which the young spawn lay hold, as in Fig. 174.

By means of these arrangements the pregnant oyster deposits its spawny progeny in quiet repose; the young germs are intercepted by the fagots and hurdles suspended between the piles, where the young oysters develop themselves under the favourable conditions of repose, temperature, and light. When the fishing season arrives, the piles and fagots which surround the beds are removed, and the oysters are gathered suitable for market. The oysters thus selected for sale are packed loosely in osier baskets and sunk, while waiting for purchasers, into a reserve or park. This park is established on the shores of the lake. It is constructed of piles which support a gangway provided with hooks, from which the baskets filled with living oysters are suspended, ready for sale.

Some twenty years ago the oyster-beds of France had become totally exhausted under the open system of dredging; and circumstances having brought the protective system pursued at Fusaro under the notice of M. Coste, a learned academician, to whom France is indebted for the restoration of the bivalve, M. Coste reported to the Emperor in 1858 that at Rochelle, Marennes, Rochefort, at the Isles of Ré and Oleron, where there had formerly been twenty-three oyster-beds, there were now only five, and these in danger of being destroyed by the increase of mussels; that at the Bay of St. Brieuc, so naturally suited for oyster culture, the beds were reduced to three; that even on the classic oyster grounds of Cancale and Granville, it was only by the most careful administration that decay was prevented, while the increasing numbers of consumers threatened altogether to destroy an industry essentially necessary for the support of a maritime population.

The impulse given by this report has been productive of the most satisfactory results in France. All along the coast the maritime populations are actively engaged in oyster culture. Oyster parks, in imitation of those at Fusaro, have sprung up. In his appeal to the Emperor, M. Coste suggested that the State, through the Administration of Marine, and by means of the vessels at its command, should take steps for sowing the whole French coast in such a manner as to re-establish the oyster-banks now in ruins, extend those which were prosperous, and create others anew wherever the nature of the bottom would permit. The first serious attempt to carry out the views of the distinguished academician was made in the Bay of St. Brieuc. In the month of April in the same year in which his report was received, operations commenced by planting three millions of mother-oysters which had been dredged in the common ground; brood from the oyster grounds of Cancale and Tréquiers were distributed in ten longitudinal lines on tiles, fragments of pottery, and valves of shells. At the end of eight months the progress of the beds was tested, and the dredge in a few minutes brought up two thousand oysters fit for the table, while two fascines drawn up at random contained nearly twenty thousand, from one to two inches in diameter. Two of these fascines exposed to public view at Béni and Patrieux excited the astonishment of the maritime population.

This result encouraged M. Coste to pursue his experiments upon a greater scale, and he now proposed to bring the whole littoral under a regulated system of oyster culture. In the roads of Toulon and in Lake Thau, which touches this port, the same system was put in force by the Administration of Marine as had already been done in the Bay of Arcachon and in the Isle of Ré. In these localities oyster culture assumed gigantic proportions. Associations were formed for the purpose of prosecuting them and forming oyster-parks.

These exertions roused the curiosity of foreign nations. Van Beneden, a distinguished naturalist of Louvain, and M. Eschrecht of Copenhagen, visited France to study the arrangements for oyster culture. M. Coste demonstrated that parks could be established on all places visited by the tide, and under his advice the Bay of Arcachon is now transformed into a vast field of production, which increases every day, giving the happiest presages of an abundant harvest. Already twelve hundred capitalists, associated with a similar number of fishermen, occupy a surface of nine hundred and eighty-eight acres, which emerge at low water. In this bay the State has organized two model farms for experimental purposes, in which tiles, fascines, and valves of shells are laid down with other appliances, to which the young oysters may attach themselves. These expedients have been so successful that the park, which has cost about £114, is now estimated to be worth about £8000 in money, with a total of five million oysters, large and small. The Isle of Ré, which was originally surrounded by a muddy bottom ill adapted for oyster culture, has been totally changed, so that in two years four leagues of foreshore have been turned into a rich and profitable oyster-bed; twelve hundred parks are in full activity, and two thousand others are in course of construction, the whole forming a complete girdle round the island.

Every one has heard of the green oysters of Marennes, the preservation, amelioration, and ripening of these oysters, so to speak, representing a very considerable branch of industry in France. In order to give the reader some idea of its importance, we shall give here a brief summary of M. Coste's voyage of exploration on the French littoral.

The parks at Marennes, in which the oysters are placed in order to acquire the green colour which characterises them, are basins stretching along both banks of the Seudre for many leagues. They are locally known as _claires_, and differ from the oyster-parks of other countries in this particular--that, while the ordinary parks are so arranged as to be submerged at every return of the tide, the basins of Marennes are so arranged that they can only be submerged at spring tides; that is, at the new and full moon, when the waters rise beyond the ordinary level.

The basins of _claires_ occupy from two hundred and fifty to three hundred square yards of superficies; two sluices permit of the entrance and withdrawal of water at will, so as to maintain it at the level most convenient to the industrial wants of the place, or to empty it altogether when it is necessary to cleanse the basin, pave the bottom, and furnish it with a fresh supply of oysters.

When these necessary works are completed, advantage is taken of the first spring tide to fill the basin. When the tide begins to ebb, the sluices are closed, so as to retain sufficient water in the basins; and while thus shut up, salt held in solution is deposited, and qualities analogous to those of marine bottoms are produced, purged by cleansing processes of all products offensive to the bivalves.

When the basin has been filled with sea-water for the necessary time, and the bottom is sufficiently impregnated, it is emptied and left to dry; and now, the soil being prepared, it only remains to furnish it with oysters of a mellow and ripe age, in order to give them their green hue. Towards the month of September, at low water, the whole sea-side population of Marennes go to gather oysters on the pavement left uncovered by the ebbing tide, or by using a dredger in the deeper parts of the _claires_ where the water still remains. A temporary magazine for the reception of the oysters thus gathered is erected on the banks, which the water revisits twice a day. The young are reserved for cultivation on the parks or _claires_; the fullest are sold for consumption in the neighbourhood; but the quantity of oysters raised at Marennes is insufficient to supply the demand. About a third of the provision intended for the _claires_ comes from the coasts of Brittany, of Normandy, and La Vendée. "These foreign oysters," says M. Coste, "never attain the fine flavour of those bred in the locality. It is necessary to keep them for a long time in the _claires_ before they are sufficiently ameliorated, and, even when they become green, they retain traces of their primitive nature, remaining hard, in spite of the new qualities imparted to them by cultivation; a certain bitterness remains, which is easily distinguished by the true amateur; it is the same with indigenous adult oysters. When they are taken at this stage of their existence the colouring does not succeed with them;--it is only, so to speak, the false brand used to give a speculative value to the merchandise. It is not enough that the mollusc should have a fine flavour; it must have the peculiar taste. It is not enough that it has the green hue; it is necessary that these qualities should pervade it from the earliest age, and that the culture of the _claires_ should continue to the end." It is thus necessary that the oysters for the _claires_ of Marennes should be selected when from twelve to eighteen months old, that the shells should be well-formed, and free from all foreign bodies adhering to the surface. Being thus carefully picked out, the oysters are distributed over the bottom of the _claires_ with a shovel, and afterwards so arranged by the hand that they may not touch each other when they increase in size; that they do not embarrass each other by the movements of their valves; and that nothing should interfere with the regularity of their forms. The young colony reposes under a sheet of water from twelve to eighteen inches deep, which is, as we have said, only renewed at spring tides, which reach the level. Nor are the oysters abandoned to themselves in these privileged beds while they are growing and ripening. They are objects of continual care and of special manipulation. The spring tides visit the _claires_ charged with mud, which, if deposited in the motionless basins, would act as a mortal poison to the young mollusc; hence the necessity of transporting them from one _claire_ charged with mud into others free from such accumulations; and this is a process in constant operation until the animals are finally gathered for consumption. Oysters deposited in the _claires_ aged eighteen months should remain two years before they are ready for use; but three and even four years are required to give them the full degree of perfection which characterises the best products of the Marennes oyster-parks.

Oysters placed in the reservoirs in an adult state become green, it is true, in a very few days, but they never attain the exquisite flavour of those which have been bred in the parks, and have undergone the costly manipulation described from their earliest years.

The question arises, What is the colouring principle which is here in operation? The green colour is not general; it is shown principally on the branchiæ, upon the labial feelers and intestinal canal; it is rather undecided; and the colouring matter appears to differ chemically from all other known pigments of green colour. Must it be attributed to the soil of the _claire_? This is its most probable origin. But many naturalists insist that the colouring matter proceeds from an infusorial animalcule, the green-coloured Vibrion. Others have hazarded the opinion that it is a disease of the liver in our unfortunate bivalve which produces the colour. Bile secreted in excess by a diseased liver would give a green hue to the parenchyma of the respiratory organs of an animal rendered sick by the exceptional treatment to which it has been subjected. Of these three opinions, says M. Figuier, the first, as we have said, presents the greatest appearance of probability.

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The system of oyster farms, which has worked admirably for the companies themselves, has proved of doubtful utility, so far as the oyster-eating public is concerned, as the following sketch of the Whitstable oyster farms will show. The oyster farm at Whitstable is co-operative in the best sense of the term, and has been in operation for many years. The Company possesses large oyster grounds, and a fine fleet of boats kept for the purpose of dredging and planting the beds; it is established under the Joint Stock Companies Act, but there is no other way of entrance into it but by birth, as none of the free dredgermen of the town can hold shares. "When a man dies his interest in the Company dies with him, but his widow, if he leaves one, obtains a pension. The affairs of the Company are managed by twelve directors, who are called "the jury."

"The layings at Whitstable," to summarise Mr. Bertram, "occupy about a mile and a half square; and the oyster-beds have been so prosperous as to have obtained the name of the 'happy fishing grounds.' Whitstable lies in a sandy bay, formed by a small branch of the Medway, which separates the Isle of Sheppey from the mainland. Throughout this bay, from the town of Whitstable at its eastern extremity to the old town of Faversham, which lies several miles inland, the whole of the estuary is occupied by oyster farms, on which the maritime population, to the extent of three thousand people and upwards, is occupied; the sum paid for labour by the various companies being set down at £160,000 per annum, besides the employment given at Whitstable in building and repairing boats, dredges and other requisites for the oyster-fishing. The business of the various companies is to feed oysters for the London and other markets, to protect the spawn or floatsome, as the dredgers call it, which is emitted on their own beds, and to furnish, by purchase or otherwise, the new brood necessary to supply the beds which have been taken up for consumption."

We have hinted above that in oyster, as in other fisheries, a wasteful spirit of extravagance has hitherto prevailed. It appears, however, that no rule can be laid down even as to the particular year in which the oysters will spawn, much less where it will be carried to; for, although the artificial contrivances adopted by Sergius Orata for saving the spawn are perfectly well known to the parties interested here, they have not hitherto been imitated; the practice of the companies and private owners of oyster-layers being to purchase their young brood from the dredgers and others who fish along the public foreshore and open grounds on the Kent and Essex coasts, and even as far north as the Frith of Forth. The little bay of Pont, for instance, on the Essex coast, which is an open piece of water sixteen miles long and three broad, free to all, and which formerly yielded considerable supplies to Billingsgate, now gives employment to a hundred and fifty boats, each with crews of three or four men, who are wholly employed in obtaining young brood--that is, oysters from eighteen months to two years old, which they sell to the oyster farmers. The result is, that the oyster farms have become a vast monopoly. By tacit consent they agree to feed the market at some eight pounds sterling per bushel; they pay the dredger one-fourth of that sum; and as the common fishing grounds are thus rendered mere nurseries of young brood, the lover of the bivalve must reconcile himself to pay a monopoly price for the precious morsel.

The system pursued at Whitstable, and other oyster-parks in the estuary of the Thames and Medway, is most efficient. The oysters reared in them, called "natives," in contradistinction to those called "commons," which are bred in their natural beds, are justly considered to be very superior in flavour, although they are a mixed breed, being brought from every quarter to augment the stock.

The Thames, or "native" system, is as follows: Every year each layer is gone over and examined by means of a dredge, successive portions being done day by day, till it may be said that each individual oyster has been examined; the young brood is detached from its bed, the double oysters are separated, and all kinds of enemies killed. During three days in each week dredging is pursued for "planting;" that is, for transference from one bed to another more suitable for their growth or fattening, and for the removal of the dead or sickly oysters and mussels. On the other three days dredging for market takes place, when the more mature beds are dredged, and as many are lifted as are required. Not only is this constant dredging of the beds themselves necessary, but the public beds immediately outside require the same care to keep them in a fit state, and free from enemies.

The same story of over-fishing and improvidence extends round our whole coast. The far-famed Pandores obtained at Preston Pans, near Edinburgh, once so cheap, are becoming scarce and dear. The brood is caught and barreled for export to Holland and other places, especially the Thames oyster farms. English buyers pick the grown oysters for Manchester and other large provincial markets, and the Corporation of Edinburgh, the Duke of Buccleuch, and other proprietors of the foreshore, have just interfered in time to prevent the total destruction of the trade, when the wild song of the Cockenzie dredgerman might have been left to charm some future antiquary, as it is now said to charm the oyster into the dredge with its refrain:

"The herring it loves the merry moonlight,
The mackerel it loves the wind;
But the oyster it loves the dredger's song,
For it comes of a gentle kind."

The Scallop-shell (_Pecten_) is round, nearly equal-sided, resting on the right valve, which is more convex and marked with radiating ribs. Linnæus made the mistake of confounding with the _Ostrea_ a great number of shells, which, by their channeled edges and surfaces, strongly reminded one of the arrangements of the teeth of a comb, whence their name of _Pecten_. They were well known to naturalists long before the time of Linnæus, under the name of _Pilgrims'_ shells, a name which came into use from the practice which prevailed among pilgrims in the middle ages--we know not why--of ornamenting habits and hats with the valves of some of the species.

The shell of the _Pecten_ is in general nearly circular, more or less elongated, and terminated towards the summit in a straight line, forming a sort of triangular appendage called the ear, to which the hinges are attached. The valves are very regular, but with no resemblance to each other. In some species, the shell of which is closely shut, the lower valve is more or less convex than the upper one. In others, both valves are convex. The hinge is without teeth, and the ligament, which is intended to close the shell, is inserted into a triangular depression or dimple. The retractile muscle is unequal, and nearly central. The valves are not nacred inside, and are formed on their exterior surface of numerous fluted channels, which spring from a lobe more or less pointed at the summit, diverging towards the circumference. The edges are sometimes smooth, as in the Watered Pecten (_P. pseudamussium_, Fig. 175), but more frequently they are formed in strips or scales, as in the Smooth-shelled Pecten (_P. glaber_, Fig. 176). Upon the whole, however, the Pectens are very variable, but always elegant in form; the colours are frequently lively and brilliant. In PL. XIV., some of the most striking forms are represented, as in Fig. I., the Ducal Mantle (_Pecten pallium_), an inhabitant of the Indian Ocean, remarkable for its elegant form, its twelve radiating stripes, diverging towards the circumference, the horizontal furrows of its salient scales, and the striking distribution of its white spots upon a bed of red and brown marble; Fig. II., the Purple Pecten; Fig. III., the Coral Pecten; Fig. IV., the Tiger Pecten; Fig. V., the Foliaceous Pecten; and Fig. VI., the Northern Pecten.

The animal which inhabits the Pecten shell has the general form of the oyster, differing however from it in a remarkable manner. The edges of the mantle are furnished with multiplied fringes of simple tentacles, between which we find other tentacular appendages a little thicker, each terminating in a sort of small pearl, vividly coloured, to which is attached a nervous thread, which has been taken for an eye. Another difference: the branchiæ, in place of being connected by a striated lamina, as is the case in the oyster, are cut into parallel capillary filaments, forming a free and floating fringe, and the mouth is surrounded by salient many-cleft lips.

I. Pecten pallium. (Linn.)
II. Pecten purpuratus. (Lamarck.)
III. Pecten foliaceus.
IV. Pecten tigris. (Lamarck.)
V. Pecten nodasus. (Linn.)
VI. Pecten islandicus. (Chemnitz.)
]

While the oyster shell is completely fixed to its bed, the Pecten is, on the contrary, perfectly free, and shifts from place to place, moving in the water even with a certain amount of agility; by smartly closing its half-opened valves and forcibly expelling the water, it moves backward by a sort of reaction; this action, repeated many times, compels the animal to move almost in spite of itself, and enables it to avoid danger, or directs its steps towards the spot it wishes to reach. Some naturalists even assert that, when raised to the surface, the Pecten half opens its shell in such a manner that the upper valve serves the purpose of a sail.

The Pectens, of which a hundred and seventy-six species are described, are inhabitants of every known sea. Twenty species belong to Europe, among which we may mention _P. opercularis_, represented in Fig. 177; _P. glaber_, and _P. nivea_. Fig. 178 represents the White-mantled Pecten (_P. plica_, Linn.) of the Indian Ocean, and Fig. 179, the Concentric Pecten (_P. Japonica_) of the Japan seas.

Among the Ostreadæ the shells of _Spondylus_ are distinguished for their variety of form and the brilliant colours with which they are decorated. This makes them much sought after by amateur collectors, and procures for them a high price. The shell of _Spondylus_ is solid and thick, with unequal adherent valves, nearly always bristling with spines, forming a very peculiar kind of ornamentation to the valves; the hinges have two very strong teeth. The animals which inhabit this shell resemble the oyster in many respects, but they still more closely resemble the Pectens. The edges of the mantle are provided with two rows of tentacles, the exterior row being, many of them, furnished at their extremities with coloured tubercles. As examples, we note several species of these bivalves for representation. _Spondylus regius_ (PL. XV. Fig. I.) is, perhaps, the most remarkable for its immense spines. _Spondylus radians_, Lamarck (Fig. III.), is noted for its elegant form. _Spondylus avicularis_ (Fig. IV.) shows remarkable inequality in the valves. _Spondylus imperialis_, Chenu (Fig. II.), has long projecting spines, like feet, and the Scaly Spondylus (_S. crassisquama_, Fig. V.) is covered with scales arranged like so many roofing-tiles.

Like oysters, the genus Spondylus is frequently found firmly rooted to rocks and other submarine bodies, and, oftener still, heaped one upon the other, like herrings in their barrel.

These animals belong essentially to the seas of warm countries. We find them, however, occupying considerable space in the Mediterranean, where (Fig. VI.) the Ass-footed Spondylus (_S. gæderopus_) abounds.

But the most remarkable species of all is assuredly _Spondylus regius_ (PL. XV. Fig. I.). This species is a native of the Indian Ocean, and there scarcely exist three fragments of this rare shell in the museums of Europe. M. Chenu relates in one of his books an anecdote which would prove--if any proof were necessary--how far the desire of a collector to obtain possession of some rare and costly specimen will carry him in order to attain his object. "M. R----," says M. Chenu, "was Professor of Botany to the Faculty of Paris, and was, as some times happens, more learned than rich; he wished, on the invitation of a stranger, to purchase one of these shells at a very high price, which might be from 3000 to 6000 francs; the bargain was made, and the price agreed upon; it was only necessary to pay. The money in the professor's hands made only a small part of the sum the merchant was to receive for his shell, and he would not part with it without payment. M. R----, now consulting his desire to possess the shell more than his weak resources, made up secretly a parcel of his scanty plate, and went out to sell it. Without consulting his wife he replaced his silver plate by coverings of tin, and ran to the merchant to secure his coveted Spondylus, which he believed to be _S. regius_.

I. Spondylus regius. (Linn.)
II. Spondylus imperialis. (Chemu.)
III. Spondylus radians. (Lamarck.)
IV. Spondylus avicularis. (Lamarck.)
V. Spondylus crassisquama. (Lamarck.)
VI. Spondylus gæderopus. (Linn.)
]

"The hour of dinner arrived, and we may imagine the astonishment of Madame R----, who could not comprehend the strange metamorphosis of her plate. She delivered herself of a thousand painful conjectures on the subject. M. R----, on his part, returned home happy with his shell, which he had committed to the safe custody of a box placed in his coat pocket. But, as he approached the house, he paused, and began for the first time to think of the reception he might meet with. The reproaches which awaited him, however, were compensated when he thought of the treasure he carried home. Finally, he reached home, and Madame R----'s wrath was worthy of the occasion; the poor man was overwhelmed with the grief he had caused his wife; his courage altogether forsook him. He forgot his shell, and, in his trepidation, seated himself on a chair without the necessary adjustment of his garment. He was only reminded of his treasure by hearing the crushing sound of the broken box which contained it. Fortunately, the evil was not very great--two spines only of the shell were broken; but the good man's grief made so great an impression on Madame R----, that she no longer thought of her own loss, but directed all her efforts to console the simple-minded philosopher."

The variation in the number and direction of the spines is a striking feature in Spondylus. When the whole lower surface adheres to branches of coral, a very frequent occurrence, they are confined to the upper valve, but when a part only of the valve, the whole surface becomes covered.

Having finished our short sketch of the Conchifera, we shall now treat of the singular group, Brachiopoda,[11] which some place nearer to the Gasteropoda than the Pteropoda, giving them, in fact, their place. It is out of the province of this work to enter into the physiological arguments of such a question. The days of the Brachiopoda or short-footed animals are past. Of the 1842[12] species formerly known, a few types of a small number of genera only are left, numbering in all 102. The Terebratulidæ are best represented; there were once 300 or 400 species; there are now not more than 67 in the seas of the world. The difference between the past and the present is especially striking, when we compare the recent and fossil species of Europe. Among no other class of shells has there been such a wholesale extinction of species. The great family of Spiriferæ are wholly extinct, and of 400 Rhynconella only four are now living. The curious Crania, Discina, and Lingula are still living, and are mostly found in the seas of the southern hemisphere.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: We give this illustration as representing the comparative size of the oysters at different ages; but it is necessary to state that the specimens were artificially attached to the block by means of glue for exhibition. Oysters always attach themselves by the back of the rounded shell near to the hinge, as stated at p. 363.]

[Footnote 10: The cause of the present scarcity of oysters is a much-vexed question. Mr. Frank Buckland, the greatest living authority on oyster and fish culture, attributes it to sudden changes of temperature at the critical period when the spat is newly formed, rather than to over-dredging.--ED.]

[Footnote 11: The _Brachiopoda_ may be thus tabulated:--

Family.

I. _Lingulidæ_, containing Lingula and other fossil genera.
II. _Discinidæ_, containing Siphonolreta and Discina.
III. _Craniadæ_, containing Crania.
IV. _Productidæ_, containing Chonetes and Productus, fossil.
V. _Orthidæ_, containing Calceola, Davidsonia, Strophomena, and Orthis.
VI. _Rhynconellidæ_, containing Atrypa, Pentamerus, and Rhynconella.
VII. _Spiriferidæ_, containing Uncites, Retzia, Athyris, and Spirifera.
VIII. _Terebratulidæ_, containing Thecidium, Agriope, Terebratella,
and Terebratula.
]

[Footnote 12: Woodward's Manual, p. 135.]

CEPHALOUS MOLLUSCA.