THE OYSTER.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXV, Issue 209, 3 September 1891, Page 4

THE OYSTER.

* (.Saturday Review,) The oyster (Ostrea edulis, Linn.) is properly a shelly mollusc. He really "sits in Ms bones,'' for his Bhell is an ossification— or, to speak more exactly, his shells, for he has two. One of these is oonvex, the other flat ; and, strange to say, the oyster insteadof Bitting on his flat side Bits on the convex valve, aud glues it if he can to a rock. But the upper valve is the thinnest and lightest, and is thererore the most easily raised. A strong muscle closes the valves tight, but in a stats of nature, or when the animal within is.no longer alive the shells gape. A.skil- . ful opener of oysters puts his blade in at the hinge, and cuts. the ligament whioh binds the shell together ; but, a long experience of oyster shops has revealed but few of these deft operators, and ney chiefly belong to the superior, if weaker, sex. When the shells are apart we see tbe oyster's heart, a dark mark in the middle of his body. It may be seen to pulsate in a sluggish manner, for though an oyster, no doubt, has feelings, and wears his heart, so to speak, on his Sleeve, he dcQ3 not readily betray his emotions. When the connection whioh binds him to the under shell is severed he immediately dies; and, as this coup de grace is always given before he is '* tucked io," it is nonsense to talk of eat. ing oysters *_ot only raw but alive. The " beard," or gills, immediately collapse, and may be examined, when they will be found to consist of four thin plates, or layers of muscular fibre. The mouth is situated near the hiuge, and the gills set a current of sea water circulating towards ib. Hence the curreut passes into a wide gullet, dilating into a spacious stomach. The blood of the oyster is colourless, and his nervous system 18 apparently of a rudimentary character. Indeed, Professor Huxley is kiud enough to comfort "lovers of oysters" by assuring them that " the sensibility of the oyster is infinitely small," A single full-grown'oys-ter produces, at the proper season, about a million young, whioh swim about for a week or so, and then settle down to home life, ! attaching their still microscopic shells to any solid body* whioh in their wanderings they have encountered. They are now about the twentieth of. an inch in diameter, and form little white speoks called " spat." Iv six months they attain the size of a threepenny piece, at Ij'wo years old they are two inches across, and at three years three inohes, so ' that their growth is rapid, Perhaps the most curious thing in the natural history of the oyster is its sex. When a female has parted with "he? season's eggs she assumes a male sex. How long this metamorphose lasts and how often it takes place are still unsolved myate.ies. According to a Frenoh naturalist, the ehttnge is effected at will, and the oyster can choose its sex. It is possible tbat when the female oyster hos given a million hostages to fortune sbe thinks she has done enough for one lifetime, and so begins again as a male oyster, or the changes may— and this is far more likely— be periodical and involuntary. The spat is often deposited in strange places. Old boots are named among the objects to which the oyster will attach itself, as are the backs of oysters and crabs, clay pipes, and broken bottles, or the shell of a turtle. Mr Philpots mentioned an old Chinese teapot without a spout, into which a young oyster had found its way and gradually grown until it filled tbe whole yes.el, The mouth of the teapot was closely plugged by the lower valve of the . shell. Thousands of youthful oysters fail to find even such a place of security as this, and are devoured by sea-urchins, starfhh, - crabs, birds, and even quadrupeds. A fox who tried to taste an oyster was caught by the tongue, and the fateful tide came up and , drowned him. Three mice have similarly * been found with their .heads in chanoeryi -.-■:" But the oyster has more reason to, dread sand, than any more animate enemy. " The , Moan of the Native" appeared in Punoh some years ago, and told the sad. tale of an 'oyster subject to the malign inflence of sand— ' It gets into my shell and the delioate fringe .... That I use when I breathe, and I oan't '- shut my hinge. "; Farther on he tells, iis — I've complained to Frank Buokland, who i . quite understands, •-"*.: . But* he can't undertake to abolish, the -Vj,V: .' sands. ' ';,--■ -";'* A large size of native is sometimes to be AJajtißiffihJ&n& it is a complete mistake to :|^;feu^ it is the better. &g3^r_fis ;;m» loss of flavour in the large size ; wine and old mutt jn, : 'Jxpi_isive. "".We do not. howLincoln,

■aoroßP, and wbioh, fried in id butter, is bb muoh as an oan consume at a sitting, ere are touvd in every sea the B.ltio, for some two a annually in Europe alone. o hear of ." oyster gardens " near Sydney, where you go to bathe, taking a towel and an oyster knife, with a loaf and butter, where you deposite your olothes, and may eat as many oysters as you can open for a shilling. There is no doubt that the oysters thus freßhly taken from the bed may be tasted in the greatest perfeotion. Travelling disagrees With bis liver, whioh is amoDg his largest and most important organs, and keeping bim in ioe deteriorates the flavour, bb it does that of all fish. The somewhat melancholy conclusion of the whole matter is that oysters are palatable, wholesome nourishing— and expensive— and that a great many beds will have been laid down before they oan be anything to us but a luxury or a medioine They are reoommended as "sovran ' against the influenza, and calculated to keep old people alive when all other fcod failß ; but we may long in vain for days when a oookeiy book began its reoipes with «' Take a hundred and fifty oysters," or " Take of oysters two quarts." But, as they say in a neighbouring island, " the best way to oook an oyster is to eat him raw."