CHAPTER XII.

ACEPHALOUS MOLLUSCA--_continued_.

MYTILIDÆ--THE MUSSEL.

"Ecce inter virides jactatur mytilus algas."

_Anthologia._

We shall now consider the nineteenth family or Mytilidæ, which includes

Mytilus, Modiola, Lithodomus, and Dreissena.

[Illustration: Fig. 157. Mytilus edulis (Linnæus).]

The well-known shell of the mussel (Fig. 157, _Mytilus edulis_) is

longitudinal, equivalve, and regular, pointed at the base, with capacity

to attach itself by a byssus; the hinge has no teeth, but a deep furrow,

in which the ligament is located. In the genus _Mytilus_ the byssus is

divided to its base. In _Modiola_ it has a common corneous centre. In

_Pinna_ the anus is furnished with a long angular base. In all these

genera the foot is small, its retractile muscles numerous, and the

byssus large. In _Lithodomus_ the byssus is rudimentary; the muscles are

retractile, equal, and two pairs only. In _Unio_, _Cardium_, and

_Hyria_, the foot is large and not byssiferous.

The animal, as described by M. Chenu, is elongate, oval, the lobes of

the mantle simple or fringed, divided at the edge into two leaves, the

interior being very short, bearing a fringe of small, cylindrical, and

movable fillets; the exterior leaf is united to the shell very near the

edge. The opening by which water and food are introduced supplies the

branchiæ at the same time. The stomach consists of a white membrane,

thin, like opaline, and presenting itself in longitudinal folds; the

liver is granulous, composed of greenish grains more or less deep,

contained in the meshes of a whitish tissue forming a thickish bed,

which surrounds the stomach, the intestines taking the direction of the

median and dorsal line, and beneath the heart are received and terminate

in a small appendage, floating in the cavity of the mantle near the

hinge. The foot is, perhaps, the remarkable organ of the mussel: it is

small, semi-lunar when not in motion, but capable of great elongation,

resembling thus a sort of conical tongue, having a longitudinal furrow

on its side. It is put in motion by several pairs of muscles, all of

which penetrate and are interlaced with the tissue; behind it is the

silky byssus. The mouth is large, and furnished with two pairs of soft

palpi, which are pointed and fixed by their summit. Abdominal masses

emanate, and on each side a pair of nearly equal branchiæ. The

additional muscles, one anterior and small, the other posterior, large,

and rounded. At the base of the foot is a gland which furnishes a

viscous secretion; this viscous liquid is organized and moulded in the

groove of the foot, and forms a thread, and originates the byssus; it is

a bundle of hairs, mane, or thread, which holds on to its shell.

The byssus plays an important part in the organization of the mussel.

While the oyster remains eternally riveted to its rock, until torn from

it by violence, the mussel moves about, and in this motion the byssus is

an active agent. The mussel attaches its byssus to some fixed object,

and drawing upon it, as upon a line, the shell is displaced. The house

is drawn onwards; the animal is in motion. It takes no great strides,

but a fraction of an inch satisfies its desires; it is, however, an

advance upon the oyster, and a lesson in mechanics. The mussel stretches

out its foot, and, at the point chosen, it hooks on a hair of the

byssus; then, withdrawing the foot suddenly, and hauling on the thread,

the animal and shell are moved forward. Every time it repeats this

motion it seems to attach an additional hair, so that at the end of the

four and twenty hours it has used many inches in length of cordage. In

the byssus of some mussels we find as many as a hundred and fifty of

these small threads, with which the animal anchors itself most securely

to the rock. Aided by this cordage, the mussel suspends itself to

vertical rocks, holding on a little above the surface of the water, so

that the shell is smooth and polished as compared with the coarse and

rugged shell of the oyster.

The mussels, like the oysters, are gregarious, and widely diffused over

all European seas. They abound on both sides the Channel, their lower

price having procured for them the name of "the poor man's oyster;" but

it is infinitely less digestible and savoury than its congener.

[Illustration: Fig. 158. Byssus, mantle, and oviduct.

A, right lobe of the mantle; D, rectum; G, branchiæ; H, foot; J,

posterior muscle; L, superior tube; O, heart; P, ventricle; Q, auricle;

X, pericardium; _b_, tentacles; _d_, byssus; _e_, gland of the byssus;

_g_, retractile muscle of the foot; _h_, valves of the mantle; _i_,

oviduct; _j_, orifice of the excretory organ; _k_, internal ditto.]

Many of our readers may think that mussels are found on the shore in a

state of nature, of good size, well flavoured, and fit for the table.

Nothing of the kind! Detached from the rocks and cliffs of the sea,

where it has been growing in a natural state, it is lean, small, acrid,

and unwholesome food; and it is only when human industry intervenes to

ameliorate this child of Nature that it becomes palatable and wholesome

food. In order to trace the ameliorative process by which the coriaceous

flesh of the mussel was rendered tender, fat, and even savoury, we must

conduct the reader back into the middle ages.

Some time in 1236 a barque, freighted with sheep and manned by three

Irishmen, came to grief upon the rocks in the creek of Aiguillon, a few

miles from Rochelle. The neighbouring fishermen who came to the relief

of the crew succeeded with great difficulty in saving the life of the

master, a man named Walton. Exiled upon the lonely shore of the Aunis,

with a few sheep saved from shipwreck, Walton at first supported himself

by hunting sea-fowl, which frequented the shore and neighbouring marshes

in vast flocks. He was a skilful fowler, and invented or adapted a

peculiar kind of net, which he called the _night net_. This consisted of

a net some three or four hundred yards in length by three in breadth,

which he placed horizontally, like a screen, along the quiet waters of

the bay, retaining it in its position by means of posts driven into the

muddy bottom. In the obscurity of the night the wild-fowl, in floating

along the surface of the waters, would come in contact with the net, and

get themselves entangled in its meshes.

But the Bay of Aiguillon was only a vast lake of mud, in which boats

moved with difficulty; and Walton, having arranged his bird-net, began

to consider what kind of boat would enable him most conveniently to

navigate the sea of mud. The flat-bottomed, square-sided boat, known in

our rivers as a _punt_, and on the Norman coast as an _acon_, was the

result. Walton's boat had a wooden frame some three yards long and one

in breadth and depth, the fore part of which sloped down into the water,

in the form of a prow, at a slight angle. In propelling the boat the

rower, who occupied the stern of the punt, knelt on his right knee (as

represented in Fig. 159), inclining forward, with one hand on each edge,

and the left leg outside the boat. A vigorous push with the left foot

gave the frail boat an impulse, under which it rapidly traversed the bay

from one point to the other.

The mussels swarmed in the little bay; and Walton soon remarked that

they attached themselves by preference to that part of the post a little

above the mud, and that those so placed soon became fatter, as well as

more agreeable to the taste, than those buried in the mud. He saw in

this peculiarity the elements of a sort of mussel culture which might

become a new branch of industry. "The practices he introduced," says M.

Coste, "were so happily adapted to the requirements of the new industry,

that, after six centuries, they are still the rules by which the rich

patrimony he created for a numerous population is governed. He seems to

have applied himself to the enterprise, conscious not only of the

service he was rendering to his contemporaries, but desirous that their

descendants should remember him, for in every instance he has given to

the apparatus which he invented the form of his initial letter W. After

due consideration, Walton began to carry out his design. He planted a

long range of piles along the low marshy shore, each pair forming a

letter V, the front of the letter being towards the sea, and each limb

diverging at an angle of forty-five degrees. These posts were driven

about a yard asunder; they were about twelve feet long, six feet being

above water, and interlaced with branches wattled together, so as to

form continuous hurdles, each about two hundred yards long, which are

called _bouchots_. By the assistance of this apparatus, which

intercepted spat which would otherwise have been swept away to sea by

the tide, Walton formed a magnificent collection of mussels; but he did

not abandon his isolated piles. These, being without fascines or

branches, and always submerged, arrested the spat at the moment of

emission."

[Illustration: Fig. 159. Punt or Pirogue of the Marsh.]

The advantages of this system of culture adopted by the Irish exile were

so obvious that his neighbours along the shore were not slow to imitate

his example. In a short time the whole bay was covered with similar

bouchots. At the present time these lines of hurdles form a perfect

forest in the little creek. About two hundred and thirty thousand piles

support a hundred and twenty-five thousand fascines, which, according to

M. Coste, "bend all the year under a harvest which a squadron of ships

of the line would fail to float." There are about five hundred of these

bouchots in the bay, each from two hundred to two hundred and fifty

yards in length and six feet high.

[Illustration: Fig. 160. Isolated piles covered with the spawn of

mussels.]

The isolated piles are without palisades, and are uncovered only at

spring tides. In the months of February and March the spat collected on

them scarcely equals in size a grain of linseed; by the month of May it

will be about the size of a split pea; in July, a small haricot bean:

this is the moment for its transplantation. In this month the

_bouchotiers_, as the men occupied in this culture are called, launch

their punts and proceed to the part of the bay where these piles are

driven. They detach with a hook the agglomerated masses of young

mussels, which they gather in baskets, and carry them to their bouchots.

These bouchots, that is to say, the piles covered with fascines and

branches, are of four different heights, forming, so to speak, four

stages, according to the age and growth of the mussel. Each stage

receives the mollusc suitable to it. In the first stage of its existence

the mussel cannot endure exposure to the air, and remains constantly

under water, except at the period of spring tides. These are gathered in

sacks made of old matting, or suspended in interstices of the

basket-work. "These immense palisades," says M. Coste, "cover themselves

with black clusters of mussels developed between the meshes of their

tissues." At that time the second rows are cleared away to make room for

younger generations; the mussels, which no longer dread the air, are

transported to the more advanced bouchots, which remain above water in

all tides, where they stay till they are fit for market, which usually

happens after ten or twelve months of culture on the more advanced

bouchots.

[Illustration: Fig. 161. Piles, with basket-work, covered with mussels

in a fit state to be gathered in.]

But, in order to prepare for this consummation, they are subjected to a

second and even a third remove. There is no longer any danger in

subjecting them to the air for many hours. From this they pass to a

fourth stage, termed _Amont_ (Fig. 161). From this stage the full-grown

mussel is removed. Under this system of culture the reproduction,

nursing, collecting, and preparing for market, are made simultaneously.

From July to January the mussel trade is in full operation, and the

flesh in perfection. From February to April is the close season; their

flesh is then poor and leathery. It is also remarked that those which

inhabit the upper rows of the wicker-work are of a mellower flavour than

those on the lower ranks, and that the intermediate rows are an

improvement on those which are buried in the mud, although even these

are preferable to mussels gathered on the sea shore in a state of

nature.

M. Coste gives a graphic description of the manner in which this

industry is carried on. "Having supplied the neighbouring villages," he

says, "for the purpose of supplying the more distant cities, the

bouchotiers land their punts, filled with mussels, which their wives

carry into grottoes hollowed out of the cliffs; where they clean and

pack them in hampers, baskets, and panniers, for conveyance by carts or

pack-horses. They depart on their respective journeys at night, so as to

reach their markets at La Rochelle, Rochefort, Surgéres,

Saint-Jean-d'Angely, Angoulême, Niort, Poictiers, Tours, Angers, and

Saumur, at an early hour. A hundred and forty horses and ninety carts

make upwards of thirty-three thousand journeys annually to these cities.

Besides this, forty or fifty boats come from Bordeaux, the isles of Ré

and Oleron, and from the sands of Olonne, making an aggregate of seven

hundred and fifty voyages per annum, distributing the harvest of the

little bay at places where horses could not serve the purpose.

"A bouchot, well furnished, supplies annually, according to the length

of its wings, from four to five hundred charges. The charge is a hundred

and fifty kilogrammes (over three hundred pounds), and sells for five

francs; a single bouchot thus carries a harvest equal in weight to a

hundred and thirty to a hundred and forty thousand pounds, equal in

value to £100; the whole bay probably yielding a gross revenue of

£480,000. This figure, and the abundant harvest which produces it, gives

only a slight idea of the alimentary resources of the sea shore; and

every part of the coast, properly adapted for the purpose, could be

turned to equal advantage. In the mean time, the Bay of Aiguillon

remains a monument of what one man may accomplish."

While commending the mussel as an important article of food, we must not

conceal the fact, that it has produced in certain persons very grave

effects, showing that for them its flesh has the effects of poison. The

symptoms, commonly observed two or three hours after the repast, are

weakness or torpor, constriction of the throat and swelling of the head,

accompanied by great thirst, nausea, frequent vomitings, and eruption of

the skin and severe itching.

The cause of these attacks is not very well ascertained; they have in

turn been ascribed to the presence of copper pyrites in the

neighbourhood of the mussel; to certain small crabs which lodge

themselves as parasites in the shell of the mussel; to the spawn of

star-fishes or medusæ that the mussel may have swallowed. But, probably,

the true cause of this kind of poisoning resides in the predisposition

of individuals. The remedy is very simple: an emetic, accompanied by

drinking plentifully of slightly acidulated beverages.

[Illustration: Fig. 162. Malleus alba (Lamarck).]

[Illustration: Fig. 163. Malleus vulgaris (Lamarck).]

We have now come to the twentieth family, the Aviculidæ, which contains

Avicula, Malleus, Maleagrina, Perna, and Pinna. The shells of the

Hammerheads (_Malleus_) have a rough resemblance to the implement from

which they derive their name. The valves are nearly equal, blackish, and

somewhat wrinkled on the exterior, often brilliantly nacred in the

interior. They are enlarged to the right and left of the hinge, forming

prolongations on each side, which give them the fancied resemblance to

the Hammerhead (Fig. 163). At the same time they grow in a direction

opposite to the hinge, which gives something approaching the handle of

the implement.

This is the first feature which a glance at _Malleus alba_ (Fig. 162)

conveys. The hinge is without teeth, having instead a deep conical

fossette or dimple, for the reception of a very strong ligament which

acts upon the valves. The animal is contained in the interior of the

shell, its mantle fringed by very small tentacular appendages. Only six

actually living species of the genera are known, which are inhabitants

of the Indian Ocean, of the Australian seas, and the Pacific Ocean.

The beautiful diaphanous nacre which embellishes the interior of so many

ornamental cabinets are principally produced by the animal inhabiting

the _Meleagrina_, a bivalve, sometimes designated the _pintadine_, or

mother-of-pearl shell. This bivalve moors itself to the bottom of the

sea by a strong byssus of a brownish colour. The door-posts of the

shells are irregularly rounded in their young days; they are externally

lightly foliated, and ornamented with bands of green and white, which

spring from the summit in rays, and afterwards break off into two or

three slightly scattered branches. In old age they become rugged and

blackish. The shell is in its perfection when about eight or ten years

old, their size being then about six inches in diameter, with a

thickness of about an inch and a quarter.

Nacre is the hard and brilliant substance with which the valves of

certain shells are lined in the interior. This substance is white,

silky, slightly azure, and more or less iridescent. Most of the bivalves

are supplied with nacre; some of them even yield a blue, or blue and

violet pigment. The iridescent _Haliotis iris_, for instance, is an

emerald-greenish blue of changing colour, with reflections of a purple

violet. _Turbo argyrostomus_ (Linnæus) presents a mouth of bright

silvery hue, while _Turbo chrysostomus_ appears in all the glory of

gold; but the Pintadine yields the purest white nacre, as well as the

most uniform, and especially the thickest. This product owes its

brilliant and delicate appearance to the play of light on it in its

highly-polished state. For practical purposes the nacre is separated

from the shell with an instrument; sometimes all the exterior part of

the shell being dissolved away from the precious substance, leaving only

the naked bed of nacre.

[Illustration: Fig. 164. Meleagrina margaritifera (Linnæus).

Outside of the shell.

Inside of the shell.

]

[Illustration: Fig. 165. Meleagrina margaritifera (Linnæus).]

But the most interesting of all the nacre-bearing shells is the pearl

oyster (_Meleagrina margaritifera_), the exterior, as well as the

interior, of which is represented in Fig. 164. The interior of the shell

affords the most exquisite pearls; the Esterhazy collection of jewels

afforded many such specimens. This shell is nearly round, and greenish

in colour on the outside; it furnishes at once the finest pearls, under

favourable circumstances, and the nacre so useful in many industrial

arts. Fine pearls and nacre have, in short, the same origin. The nacre

invests the whole interior of the shell of _Meleagrina margaritifera_;

being the same secretion which in the pearl has assumed the globular

form: in one state it is deposited as nacre on the walls of the bivalve,

in the other as a pearl in the fleshy interior of the animal. This nacre

is therefore at once a calcareous and horny matter, which the animal

secretes, and which it attaches to the interior walls of the shell

during the several periods of its development. Pearls are formed of the

same substance, only in place of being deposited upon the valves in

beds, the material is condensed and agglomerated in small spheroids,

which develop themselves either on the surface of the valves or in the

fleshy part of the mollusc. Between nacre and pearls, therefore, there

is only the difference of the form of deposition. Fig. 165 represents

the pearl oyster with calcareous concretions in various states of

progress.

The finest pearls--solidified drops of dew, as the Orientals term them

in the language of poetry--are secretions supposed to be the result of

disease in the animal. The matter, in place of being spread over the

surface of the valves in their beds, is condensed either on the centre

of the valves or in the interior of the organ, and forms a more or less

rounded body. The pearls, when deposited on the valves, are generally

adherent; those which originate in the body of the animal are always

free. Generally we find some small foreign body in their centre which

has served as a nucleus to the concretion, the body being perhaps a

sterile egg of the mollusc, the egg of a fish, a rounded animalcule, a

grain of sand even, round which has been deposited in concentric layers

the beautiful and much-prized gem.

The Chinese, and other Eastern nations, are said to turn this fact in

the natural history of bivalves to practical use in making pearls and

cameos. By introducing into the mantle of the mollusc, or into the

interior of a living valve, a round grain of sand, glass, or metal, they

induce a deposit which in time yields a pearl, in the one case free, and

in the other adhering to the shell. In some cases they are said to be

produced in whole chaplets by the insertion of grains of quartz

connected by a string into the mantle of a species of _Symphynota_; in

other cases, a dozen enamelled figures of Buddha seated have been

produced by inserting small plates of embossed metal in the valves of

the same species.

The pearls are very small at first; they increase by annual layers

deposited on the original nucleus, their brilliancy and shade of colour

varying with that of the nacre from which they are produced. Sometimes

they are diaphanous, silky, lustrous, and more or less iridescent;

occasionally they turn out dull, obscure, and even smoky.

* * * * *

The pearl oyster is met with in very different latitudes; they are found

in the Persian Gulf, on the Arabian coast, and in Japan, in the American

seas, and on the shores of California, and in the islands of the South

Sea; but the most important fisheries are found in the Bay of Bengal,

Ceylon, and other parts of the Indian Ocean. The Ceylon fisheries are

under Government inspection, and each year, before the fisheries

commence, an official inspection of the coast takes place. Sometimes the

fishing is undertaken on account of the State, at other times it is let

to parties of speculators. In 1804 the pearl fishery was granted to a

capitalist for £120,000; but, to avoid impoverishing all the beds at

once, the same part of the gulf is not fished every year.

The great fishery for mother-of-pearl Pintadines (_Meleagrina

margaritifera_) takes place in the Gulf of Manaar, a large bay to the

north-east of the island; it commences in the month of February or

March, and continues thirty days, taken collectively, and occupies two

hundred and fifty boats, which come from different parts of the coast;

they reach the ground at daybreak, the time being indicated by a signal

gun. Each boat's crew consists of twenty hands, and a negro. The rowers

are ten in number. The divers divide themselves into two groups of five

men each, who labour and rest alternately; they descend from forty to

fifty feet, seventy being the very utmost they can accomplish, and

eighty seconds the longest period the best divers can remain under

water, the ordinary period being only thirty seconds. In order to

accelerate their descent, a large stone is attached to a rope. According

to travellers the oars are used to rig out a stage, across which planks

are laid over both sides of the boat; to this stage the diving-stone is

suspended. This stone is in the form of a pyramid, weighing about

half-a-hundredweight; the cord which sustains it sometimes carries in

its lower parts a sort of stirrup to receive the foot of the diver. At

the moment of his descent he places his right foot in this stirrup, or,

where there is no such provision, he rests it on the stone with the cord

between his toes. In his left foot he holds the net which is to receive

the bivalves; then, seizing with his right hand a signal-cord

conveniently arranged for his purpose, and pressing his nostrils with

the left hand, he dives, holding himself vertically, and balancing

himself over his foot.

Each diver is naked, except the band of calico which surrounds the

loins. Having reached the bottom, he withdraws his foot from the stone,

which ascends immediately to the stage. The diver throws himself on his

face, and begins to gather all the pintadines within his reach, placing

them in his net. When he wishes to ascend he pulls the signal cord, and

is drawn up with all possible expedition.

A good diver, we have said, seldom remains more than thirty seconds

under water at one time; but he repeats the operation three or four,

and, in favourable circumstances, even fifteen or twenty times. The

labour is extremely severe. On returning to the boat they sometimes

discharge water tinged with blood by the mouth, nose, and ears. They are

also exposed to great danger from sharks, which lie in wait for and

frequently devour the unhappy divers.

They continue to fish till mid-day, when a second gun gives the signal

to cease. The proprietors wait on shore for their boats, in order to

superintend their discharge, which must take place before night sets in,

in order to prevent concealment and robbery.

In past times the Ceylon fisheries were very valuable. In 1797 they are

said to have produced £144,000, and in 1798 as much as £192,000. In 1802

the fisheries were farmed for £120,000; but for many years the banks

have been less productive, and are now said to yield only the sum of

£20,000 per annum.

The natives of the Bay of Bengal, those of the Chinese coast, of Japan,

and the Indian Archipelago, all abandon themselves to the pearl fishery,

the produce being estimated to realize at least £800,000. Fisheries

analogous to those of Ceylon take place on the Persian coast, on the

Arabian Gulf, along the coast of Muscat, and in the Red Sea.

In these countries the pearl fishing does not commence till the months

of July and August, the sea being at that time calmer than in other

months of the year. Arrived on their fishing-ground, the fishermen range

their barques at a proper distance from each other, and cast anchor in

water from eight to nine fathoms deep. The process is pursued here in a

very simple manner. When about to descend the divers pass a cord, the

extremity of which communicates with a bell placed in the barque, under

the armpits; they put cotton in their ears, and press the nostrils

together with a piece of wood or horn; they close their mouths

hermetically, attach a heavy stone to their feet, and at once sink to

the bottom of the sea, where they gather indiscriminately all shells

within their reach, which they throw into a bag suspended round the

haunches. When they require to breathe they sound the bell, and

immediately they are assisted in their ascent.

On the oyster-banks off the Isle of Bahrein the pearl fishery produces

about £240,000; and if we add to this the addition furnished by the

other fisheries of the neighbourhood, the sum total yielded by the

Arabian coast would probably not fall short of £350,000.

In South America similar fisheries exist. Before the Mexican conquest

the pearl fisheries were located between Acapulco and the Gulf of

Tehuantepec; subsequently they were established round the Islands of

Cubagua, Margarita, and Panama. The results became so full of promise

that populous cities were not slow to raise themselves round these

several places.

Under the reign of Charles V., America sent to Spain pearls valued at

£160,000; in the present day they are estimated to be worth £60,000. In

the places mentioned, the divers descend into the sea quite naked; they

remain there from twenty-five to thirty seconds, during which space they

can only secure two or three pintadines. They dive in this way a dozen

times in succession, which gives an average of between thirty and forty

bivalves to each diver.

* * * * *

The bivalve is carried on shore, and piled up on mats of Espartero

grass. The mollusc dies, and soon becomes decomposed; it requires ten

days to be thoroughly disorganized. When in a thoroughly corrupt state,

they are thrown into reservoirs of sea-water, when they are opened,

washed, and handed over to the dealers. The valves furnish _nacre_, and

the parenchyma the _pearls_.

The valves are cleansed, and piled up in tuns or casks; by raising their

external surface plates of nacre are obtained more or less thick,

according to the age of the mollusc.

Nacre of three kinds are distinguishable in commerce: silver-faced,

bastard white, and bastard black. The first are sold in cases of two

hundred and fifty to two hundred and eighty pounds; they are brought

from the Indies, from China, and Peru. The ships of various nations

import these shells as ballast. The second is delivered in casks of two

hundred and fifty pounds weight; it is a yellowish white, and sometimes

greenish; sometimes red, blue, and green.

* * * * *

Pearls form by far the most important product of the animal. When they

are adherent to the valves they are detached with pincers; but,

habitually, they are found in the parenchyma of the animal. In this case

the substance is boiled, and afterwards sifted, in order to obtain the

most minute of the pearls; for those of considerable size are sometimes

overlooked in the first operation. Months after the mollusc is

putrified, miserable Indians may be observed busying themselves with the

corrupt mass, in search of small pearls which may have been overlooked

by the workmen.

The pearls adherent to the valve are more or less irregular in their

shape; they are sold by weight. Those found in the body of the animal,

and isolated, are called _virgin pearls_, or _paragons_. They are

globular, ovoid, or pyriform, and are sold by the individual pearl. In

cleaning them, they are gathered together in a heap in a bag and worked

with powdered nacre, in order to render them perfectly pure in colour

and round in shape, and give them a polish; finally, they are passed

through a series of copper sieves, in order to size them. These sieves,

to the number of twelve, are made so as to be inserted one within the

other, each being pierced with holes, which determine the size of the

pearl and the commercial number which is to distinguish it. Thus, the

sieve No. 20 is pierced with twenty holes, No. 50 with fifty holes, and

so on up to No. 1000, which is pierced with that number of holes. The

pearls which are retained in Nos. 20 to 80, said to be _mill_, are

pearls of the first order. Those which pass and are retained between

Nos. 100 to 800 are _vivadoe_, or pearls of the second order; and those

which pass through all the others and are retained in No. 1000 belong to

the class _tool_, or seed pearls, and are of the third order.

They are afterwards threaded; the small and medium-sized pearls on white

or blue silk, arranged in rows, and tied with ribbon into a top-knot of

blue or red silk, in which condition they are exposed for sale in rows,

assorted according to their colours and quality. The small or seed

pearls are sold by measure or weight.

In America the bivalve is opened with a knife, like the common edible

oyster, and the pearl is obtained by breaking up the mollusc between the

finger and thumb without waiting for its decomposition; nor is it

boiled. This is a much longer and less certain process than that pursued

in the East; but the pearls are preserved in greater freshness by the

process--for the nacre of the dead shells is less brilliant than that of

those which have been suddenly killed, and at once separated from the

soft parts.

* * * * *

Some few pearls have become historical, from their size and beauty. A

pearl from Panama, in the form of a pear, and about the size of a

pigeon's egg, was presented in 1579 to Philip II., King of Spain: it was

valued at £4000. A Lady of Madrid possessed an American pearl in 1605

valued at 31,000 ducats.

The Pope Leo X. purchased a pearl of a Venetian jeweller for £14,000.

Another was presented to the Sultan Soliman the Great by the Venetian

Republic valued at £16,000. Julius Cæsar, who was a great admirer of

pearls, presented one to Servilia which was valued at a million of

sesterces, about £48,000 of our money.

There is no data for the volume or value of the two famous pearls of

Cleopatra; one of these which the queen is said to have capriciously

dissolved in vinegar and drank--Heavens preserve us from such a

draught!--is said by some authors to have been worth £60,000; the other

was divided into two parts, and suspended one half from each ear of the

Capitoline Venus. Another pearl was purchased at Califa by the traveller

Tavernier, and is said to have been sold by him to the Shah of Persia

for the enormous price of £180,000.

A prince of Muscat possessed a pearl so extremely valuable--not on

account of its size, for it was only twelve carats, but because it was

so clear and transparent that daylight was seen through it--he refused

£4000 for it.

In the Zozema Museum at Moscow there is a pearl, called the "Pilgrim,"

which is quite diaphanous; it is globular in form, and weighs nearly

twenty-four carats. It is said that the pearl in the crown of Rudolph

II. weighed thirty carats, and was as large as a pear. This size,

besides being indefinite, is more than doubtful.

The shahs of Persia actually possess a string of pearls, each individual

of which is nearly the size of a hazel nut. The value of this string of

jewels is inestimable.

At the Paris Exposition of 1855, Her Majesty the Queen exhibited some

magnificent pearls; and on the same occasion the Emperor of the French

exhibited a collection of 408 pearls, each weighing over nine

pennyweights, all of perfect form and of the finest water. The Romans

were passionately fond of pearls, and they have transmitted their taste

to the Eastern nations, who attach notions of great grandeur and wealth

to the possessor of large and brilliant pearls.

* * * * *

The genus _Pinna_, so called by Linnæus, from one of the species which

was so designated from the resemblance of its byssus to the aigrette or

plumelet which the Roman soldiers attached to the helmet. French

naturalists name them _jambonneau_, from their singular resemblance to a

dried ham (Figs. 166 and 167), their brown, smoky colour not a little

aiding the resemblance. This shell is fibrous, horny, very thin and

fragile, compressed, regular, and equivalve, triangularly pointed in

front, round or truncated behind. The hinge is linear, straight, and

without teeth; the ligament, in great part internal, occupies more than

half the anterior half of the dorsal edge of the shell, forming a

straight elongated fossette.

[Illustration: Fig. 166. Pinna rudis (Linnæus).]

[Illustration: Fig. 167. Pinna nigrina (Lamarck).]

The animal is thick, elongated, with mantle open behind, presenting a

conical furrowed foot, hearing a considerable byssus.

The _Pinnæ_ are found in almost every sea, and at various depths; they

are constantly attached by their byssus, and in a vertical position, the

larger side of their shell being uppermost. They assemble on sandy

bottoms in considerable numbers. The byssus has in all ages fixed the

attention of the Mediterranean fishermen upon these curious shells. With

its tuft of fine silky hairs, six or seven inches in length, of a fine

reddish-brown hue, articles of luxury are formed, which are often

mentioned by the Latin writers. The threads of the byssus, which are

remarkable for their unalterable colour, were formed by both Greeks and

Romans into a fabric to which there is nothing analogous in the world.

The Maltese and Neapolitans still fashion soft tissues from it, but the

stuffs so manufactured are pure objects of curiosity.

[Illustration: Fig. 168. Pinna bullata (Swainson).]

[Illustration: Fig. 169. Pinna nobilis, with its byssus (Linnæus).]

Twelve species are described as living in the several seas. _Pinna

nobilis_ (Fig. 169), the byssus of which was employed in the ancient

Neapolitan industry, inhabits the shores of the Mediterranean. _Pinna

bullata_, Swainson (Fig. 168), is also a well-known species.

OSTREIDÆ.

Our twenty-first family, Ostreidæ, contains Lima, Spondylus, Pecten,

Anomia, and the all-important oyster. The common oyster, _Ostrea

edulis_, is found in all seas. It is unequally valved, modified in shape

by the form of the submarine body to which it happens to be attached.

The lower or adherent valve is concave, always the largest; the upper

one thin, usually flat; the shell is lamellar, rough externally, and

seems to be composed of broken layers, adhering slightly to each other,

as if the successive layers had been built up from within, and each

succeeding layer was an enlargement upon its predecessor. The hinge

which unites the valves is an elastic toothless ligament placed behind

the centre, which opens the valves.

The interior surface of the valves is smooth and white, diaphanous or

pearly towards the centre, but near the back an oval or rounded

impression may be observed, to which a thick and whitish fleshy body is

attached. This is the central muscle which draws the valves together,

hermetically closing them upon the animal. This muscle is cut through in

the process of opening the oyster.

The animal has no power of locomotion; its foot is very small and often

wanting, no syphon, but lies with its mouth open, and slightly attached

to the shell. The shell itself is always adherent, as if soldered to the

rock or other submarine body, the point of adherence being near the

summit of the lower valve, at the part called the _heel_.

Let us suppose the oyster opened by the double dissection of the

ligament of the central muscle and of the abductor valves. When

displayed before our eyes, we see in the bottom of the shell a

flattened, shapeless animal, semi-transparent, greyish, and somewhat

oval-shaped. The gastronomist, who seldom sees beyond his nose, thinks

that in spite of its culinary merits the oyster belongs to the lowest

rank of animal existence; but he deceives himself, and does not know how

complex and delicate is the organization of the humble bivalve. The

animal is enveloped in a sort of smooth, thin, contractile tissue called

the _mantle_, which folds round it, presenting two lobes, separated on

the greatest part of its circumference, and forming a sort of hood, the

summit of which abuts upon the hinge of the bivalve. The edges of this

mantle are fringed with very small cilia, which the creature can extend

and draw back at pleasure, and which seem to be gifted with a certain

amount of sensibility. It is this mantle which secretes and deposits the

calcareous matter which forms the shell, each plate of which is an

enlargement on the preceding one, until it constitutes a pyramid of thin

convex lamellæ.

At the point where the lobes of the mantle meet, near the summit of the

valve, is the mouth of the animal, with its thin membranous lips. This

organ is large and dilatable, and is accompanied by four flat triangular

pieces, by means of which the animal introduces its food into the

stomachal cavity.

A very short gullet is attached to the mouth, which leads to a

pear-shaped stomach. After this stomach comes a slender sinuous

intestine, which, leading obliquely towards the interior, descends a

little, then reascends, passes behind the stomachal cavity, nearly on a

level with the mouth, crossing its first path in order to reach the

posterior face of the adductor muscle, in the centre of which it

terminates with a free opening. The stomach and intestines are

surrounded on all sides by the liver, which alone constitutes a notable

portion of the mass of organs. This liver is of a blackish colour,

pervaded with a deep yellow liquid, which is the bile. Thus the stomach

and intestines of the oyster are surrounded by the _liver_; the mouth is

connected with the stomach, and the intestines open in the back.

The heart of the oyster is placed under the liver, and is surrounded

closely by the terminal part of the intestines. It is composed, like the

same organ in the superior animal, of two distinct cavities, an auricle

and ventricle. From the ventricle issues a vessel, which is divided into

three distinct canals. One of these carries the blood towards the mouth

and tentacles; another carries it towards the liver; the last

distributes the nourishing fluid to the rest of the body. The blood of

the oyster is limpid and colourless; it passes successively from the

auricle of the heart, where it is vivified, into the ventricle, and from

this last cavity into the great vessel of which we spoke, which

distributes it into the interior of the animal.

The oyster thus possesses a true circulation; not that double system

which characterises the mammals, and which includes arterial and

pulmonary action, but a simple circulation, as it exists in fishes and

many other animals. It breathes also in the bottom of the water, after

the manner of fishes, being, like the fish, provided with organs called

gills or _branchiæ_, whose function is to separate the oxygen dissolved

in the water from its other ingredients; these branchiæ, which are

placed under the mantle, consist of a double series of very delicate

canals, placed close together, not unlike the teeth of a fine comb.

Having no head, the oyster can have no brain; the nerves originate near

the mouth, where a great ganglion is visible, whence issues a pair of

nerves which distribute themselves in the regions of the stomach and

liver, terminating in a second ganglion, situated behind the liver. The

first nervous branch distributes its sensibility to the mouth and

tentacles; the second, to the respiratory branchiæ.

With organs of the senses oysters are unprovided. Condemned to a

sedentary life, riveted to a rock where they have been rooted, as it

were, in their infancy, they neither see nor hear; touch appears to be

their only sense, and that is placed in the tentacles of the mouth.

The mode of reproduction in these creatures is very peculiar. The oyster

unites in itself the functions of both sexes. In the same organ are

found the eggs--called _spat_--and the mobile corpuscles intended to

fertilize them.

The eggs are yellowish in colour, and exist in prodigious numbers in

each individual. We are assured that an oyster may carry as many as two

millions of eggs! Nature always makes ample provision for the

preservation of species; but in spite of the most ample provision here

displayed, man, in his reckless and wasteful gluttony, has all but

defeated Nature. A tyro can compute how many individuals a bank of

oysters reckoned at twenty thousand would produce, at the rate of two

millions, or eight hundred thousand, as other authorities assert, from

each one annually, and it will amount to an incredible number--in fact,

each would multiply itself by millions in three years; and yet, thanks

to our improvident management, they get scarcer every year.

The spawning season is usually from the month of June to the end of

September: during this season the oysters deposit their eggs in the

folds of the mantle. During the period of incubation the eggs remain

surrounded by mucous matter, which is necessary to their development,

the whole having the appearance of a thick cream--this milky appearance

being due to the accumulated mass of ova surrounded by the mucus: this

mass undergoes various changes of colour while losing its fluidity,

becoming successively yellowish, greyish, brown, and violet, a condition

which indicates the near termination of the embryo state, for the

oysters do not, like many other inhabitants of the sea, leave their ova;

they incubate them in the folds of their mantle, and only discharge them

when they can live without the maternal protection. Nothing is more

curious to witness than a bank of oysters at the spawning season. Every

adult individual of which it is composed throws out its phalanx of

progeny. A living dust is seen to exhale from the oyster bank, troubling

the water and giving it a thick cloudy appearance, which disseminates

itself little by little in the liquid, until it dissipates and loses

itself far from its focus of production. The _spat_ is soon scattered

far and wide by the waves; and unless the young oyster finds some solid

body to which it can attach itself, it falls an inevitable victim to the

larger animals which prey upon it. In this its infant state, when it

has just left the protection of the parent shell, the microscope reveals

the young bivalve, with its shell perfect, having an apparatus which is

also a swimming _pad_, ready to adhere to the first solid body which the

current drives it against. This pad or cushion (which is represented in

Fig. 170) is furnished with vibratile cilia, disposed round the young

shell. Aided by the powerful adductor muscles, with which it is also

provided, this cushion is projected through the water at the will of the

young inhabitant, which has every facility for the purpose: it is even

said to swim about near the mother, before final dismissal from the

maternal protection, seeking shelter at the least alarm between the

valves of the parent shell. The pad disappears after the young oyster

has finally attached itself to a permanent bed of its own.

[Illustration: Fig. 170. Young Oysters furnished with locomotive

organs.]

Before this period of its life arrives, however, many are the dangers to

which it is exposed: its enemies are numerous; they lie in ambush for it

in every cranny! It has to guard itself against eddies and currents,

which would drive it out to sea, and mud banks, in which it would be

smothered. Crustaceans, worms, and polyps, with other equally voracious

marine inhabitants, prey upon it. Last, but not least, come the terrible

and multiplied engines of the eager fisherman--and we readily comprehend

why the oyster is provided with such accumulated masses of ova.

If the young bivalve is fortunate enough to escape all the snares and

dangers we have enumerated, it grows rapidly. It is quite microscopic at

the period of its discharge from the parent shell; at one month it is of

the size of a large pea, at the end of six months it is about

three-quarters of an inch, a year after its birth an inch and a half to

two inches, and finally, at the end of three years it has become

merchandise; that is to say, it is in a state to be sent to the parks

for preservation and feeding. In Fig. 171 we see a group of oysters,[9]

of various ages, attached to a piece of wood: A being oysters of twelve

to fifteen months, B five or six months, C three to four months, D one

to two months, and E oysters twenty days after birth.

[Illustration: Fig. 171. Groups of Oysters of different ages attached to

a block of wood.]

The species of oysters usually eaten are the common oyster (_Ostrea

edulis_, Linn.) of our own coasts and the opposite shore, and the

horsefoot oyster (_O. hippopus_, Linn.). On the Mediterranean coast are

the rose-coloured oyster (_O. rosacea_, Favanue), and the milky oyster

(_O. lacteola_, Moquin-Tandon), besides the small and little-known

crested oyster (_O. cristata_, Born), and the folded oyster (_O.

plicata_, Chemnitz). On the Corsican coast is the oyster called foliate

(_O. lamellosa_, Brocchi).

There are two principal varieties of the common oyster dredged on the

French coast, which differ in size and delicacy of flavour. These are

the Cancale and Ostend oyster. When the first has been fed for some time

in the oyster park, and has assumed its greenish hue, it is designated

the Marenna oyster, from "the park" so named in the Bay of Seudre. Of

this green colour we shall speak elsewhere.

Who believed Uncle Jack when he told us in our youth of oysters growing

on trees, and oysters so large that they required to be carved like a

round of beef--of oysters on the Coromandel coast as large as

soup-plates? Nevertheless Uncle Jack's stories were true: there are

oysters which require carving, and oysters have been plucked off trees.

In some parts of America they grow very large. Virginia possesses nearly

two million acres of oyster-beds. The sea-board of Georgia is famed for

its immense supplies; the whole coast of Long Island, extending to a

hundred and fifteen miles, is occupied with them, and all over the

States evidence is to be seen of the estimate in which the favoured

bivalve is held by the American people.

Natural oyster-beds are found in bays, estuaries, and other sheltered

sinuosities of the coast, with shelving and not too rocky bottoms, such

places being, according to the natural law of production, favourable for

the increase of the colony. Such banks abound in every sea. In France

the oyster-beds of Rochelle, of Rochefort, the Isles of Ré and Oleron,

the Bay of St. Brieuc, of Cancale, and Granville, are famous for the

quality of their produce.

On the Danish coast there are from forty to fifty oyster-banks, situated

on the west coast of Schleswig; the best bed lying between the small

isles of Sylt, Amron, Fohr, Pelworm, and Nordstrand. At the point of

Jutland, and opposite Shagen, beds less productive are found.

The great oyster-beds of England extend from Gravesend, in the estuary

of the Thames and Medway, along the Kentish coast on the one hand, and

the estuary of the Colne and other rivers on the Essex coast. The Frith

of Forth is also famous for its oyster-beds, extending from Preston

Pans far up the estuary of the river; but, curiously enough, all these

great banks, without exception, have been impoverished, and all but

exhausted, by improvident dredging, in spite of the "close season" which

has always existed.[10]

* * * * *

"He was a bold man who first ate an oyster," has been said before. The

name of the courageous individual has not been recorded, but Mr.

Bertram, in his "Harvest of the Sea," tells us a legend concerning him:

"Once upon a time,"--it must have been a long time ago,--"a man of

melancholy mood was walking by the shores of a picturesque estuary,

listening to the monotonous murmur of the sad sea-waves, when he espied

a very old and ugly oyster-shell all coated over with parasites and

sea-weeds. It was so unprepossessing that he kicked it with his foot,

and the animal, astonished at receiving such rude treatment on its own

domain, gaped wide with indignation, preparatory to closing its bivalve

still more tightly. Seeing the beautiful cream-coloured layers that

shone within the shelly covering, and fancying that the interior of the

shell itself must be beautiful, he lifted up the aged 'native' for

further examination, inserting his finger and thumb within the valves.

The irate mollusc, thinking, no doubt, that this was meant as a further

insult, snapped its pearly door down upon his finger, causing him

considerable pain. After releasing his wounded digit, our inquisitive

gentleman very naturally put it in his mouth. 'Delightful!' exclaimed

he, opening wide his eyes; 'what is this?' and again he sucked his

finger. Then the great truth flashed upon him that he had found out a

new delight--had, in fact, achieved the most important discovery ever

made. He proceeded at once to realize the thought. With a stone he

opened the oyster's stronghold, and gingerly tried a piece of the

mollusc itself. 'Delicious!' he exclaimed; and there and then, with no

other condiment than its own juice, with no accompaniment of foaming

brown stout or pale Chablis to wash it down, no newly-cut, well-buttered

brown bread, did that solitary anonymous man inaugurate the first oyster

banquet."

Another story makes the act of eating the first oyster a punishment. The

poetaster also had his views on the subject:

"The man had sure a palate covered o'er

With brass, or steel, that on the rocky shore

First broke the oozy oyster's pearly coat,

And risked the living morsel down his throat."

And ever since men have gone on eating oysters. Emperors and poets,

princes and priests, pontiffs and statesmen, orators and painters, have

feasted on the favoured bivalve.

Man has made use of the oyster from the most remote antiquity. Among the

débris of festivals which precede by ages the epoch of written history,

oyster-shells are found. On the "midden heaps" of northern Europe they

are often discovered, mingling with other rubbish and with stone

implements, evidently the refuse of very ancient feasts. We have all

read of the classic feasts of the Romans, which began with oysters

brought from fabulous distances. Vitellius ate oysters all day long, and

the idea prevailed that he could eat a thousand. Calisthenes, the

philosopher, was a passionate oyster eater; so was Caligula; Seneca the

wise could eat his hundred, and the great Cicero did not despise the

savoury bivalve. Lucullus had sea-water brought to his villa from the

shores of the Campania, in which he bred them in great abundance for the

use of his guests. To another Roman, Sergius Orata, we owe the original

idea of the oyster-park. He invented the oyster-pond, in which he bred

oysters, not for his own table, but for profit.

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.

[Illustration: Plate XII.--Dredging for Oysters.]

[Illustration: Fig. 172. Dredge employed in Oyster fisheries.]

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.

[Illustration: Plate XIII.--General View of the Oyster Parks on Lake

Fusaro.]

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 173. Artificial Oyster-bank in Lake Fusaro.]

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 174. Pillars with cords attached in Lake Fusaro.]

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.

* * * * *

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 175. Pecten pseudamussium (Chenu).]

[Illustration: Fig. 176. Pecten glaber (Linnæus).]

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.

[Illustration: PLATE XIV.--Pectinidæ.

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 177. Pecten opercularis (Linnæus).]

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.

[Illustration: Fig. 178. Pecten plica (Linnæus).]

[Illustration: Fig. 179. Pecten Japonica (Gmellin).]

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_.

[Illustration: PLATE XV.--Spondylus.

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.