The Oyster-Mother was talking to her babies. "You are leaving me to
make your own way in the sea," she said. "Keep in mind what I have so
often told you, that everybody bigger than yourself is an enemy to be
avoided. Here is something else to remember. When you are tired of
swimming about, and wish to settle down to grow your shells, choose a
clean gravelly bank or a firm rock floor. Sand or mud, if you choose
those, would sift into your shells with every tide, and you would soon
be choked. And when your shells are made, never forget that an
oyster's chief concern in life is to know when to shut up. A moment
too late in that, and life is over for you."
The babies swam out of the shell. This was not their first expedition,
but in former times they had stayed near their mother, ready to slip in
at the first scent of danger. Now they were to take care of
themselves. No babies could have looked less fitted to do it. So tiny
were they that the whole three hundred of them, placed head to tail in
a line, would not have measured longer than one's middle finger.
Boneless, shell-less, weaponless, their only safeguard was their
water-like transparency. It seemed impossible that creatures so tender
could live in the savage sea, where hungry monsters roamed incessantly
in search of prey. Yet they were not afraid. Perhaps they were too
young to think. Up they went. Near the surface of the sea they met a
shoal of cousin babies.
"We are going to travel before we settle down," said the cousins.
"Will you join our party?"
"We shall be delighted," said the babies.
The shoal set off. There were millions now, darting here and there,
their tiny round bodies flashing like crystal globules through the
water, their belts of swimming hairs wafting the microscopic creatures
of the sea into their ever-ready mouths. For days they travelled,
growing every hour a little larger, but still defenceless in the savage
sea. Sometimes lurking enemies dragged off stragglers from the edges
of the shoal; sometimes a great fish drove through their millions with
his mouth wide open, swallowing all that came within his path. Then
the ranks closed up again and went onward as before; but the shoal was
smaller than at first, and the babies grew more watchful. At last they
were tired, and a little frightened too.
"Let us find a settling-place and grow our shells," said one.
They sank to the sea-floor. It was sand. That would not do. They
drifted on. The sand gave place to mud. That would not do, either.
They drifted on again. At last a stretch of gravel, clean and firm,
lay beneath them. "A splendid place," said the babies, joyfully,
remembering their mother's words. Down they dropped, each one settling
on a stone and there fixing himself for life.
Now came the marvellous making of those strong shells which were to be
their safe retreat from every enemy. Furnished by the rich seafood, a
limy fluid formed in each soft baby's body, to ooze through tiny pores
in his outer skin, and there to harden into shell. Day by day, week by
week, the beautiful growth went on, till a two-walled house was made,
with lustrous pearly lining and a powerful hinge to pull the edges of
the walls together.
At first the shells were thin. Hungry whelks, finding them, could bore
round holes in them with their sharp-pointed shells and so reach the
juicy babies; wandering starfishes could clasp them in their long
ray-arms and swallow shell and baby whole. But as the months and years
passed by, and the surviving babies grew to greater size, layer after
layer was added to the shells, until at last, rock-hard and strong,
they kept out all intruders.
Now the oysters were secure. From helpless, shell-less, reckless
babies they had grown to cautious, well-defended dwellers in the sea,
living quiet lives in peace within their firm shell walls. When no
enemy was near their shells lay open; their fringed, delicate gills
were hung out and waved to and fro to catch their food. But at the
first alarm there was a quick withdrawing of the gills, an
instantaneous closing of the shelly walls. To the enemy all was
firm-locked, silent, hidden. The babies had grown into full knowledge;
they had learned when to shut up.