1IQ2 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



ence, the teachings of patient investigation, and the 

 trumpet-toned triumphant voice of discovery have done 

 much and rendered valuable service towards the education 

 of mankind ; but it is also true that much more remains to 

 be done. We are only beginning to learn and appreciate 

 the educational attractions of zoological observation, and 

 the revelations, wonders, and possibilities of exploring 

 science in the ocean world. 



But, after all, when the sum of our acquirements in 

 intellectual advancement is reckoned up, we find ourselves 

 possessed of but a rudimentary knowledge at the best 

 mere fragmentary records of Nature's revelations writ by 

 the hand of man with the pen of research, in the book of 

 science, and revealed to our wonder-stricken gaze by the 

 aid of the microscope. 



Yes ! we are only poor scholars in the school of life, 

 and only in the ABC class of zoology ; and, derogatory 

 as it may be to our learning, or hurtful as it doubtless is to 

 our vanity, nevertheless it is true that the zoological facts 

 which hitherto we have been enabled to glean, and are so 

 proud of knowing, are not yet verified, the doubts are not 

 yet dispelled, the opinions do not yet harmonize, and the 

 disputants are not yet silenced ; nor will they be so long 

 as Nature's ceaseless round of evolutionary toil aids the 

 metamorphoses continually occurring in the organic as in 

 the inorganic world ; that transition everlasting, in which 

 life transforms the unorganised into organised matter. 



For why ? Because the life of a man is not long 

 enough to master the wonders of Nature, and when some 

 superior intellect flashes for a moment, the mental subli- 

 mity of its piercing vision upon the chaos of ignorance 

 enveloping her secrets, time's flight, though swift, is long 



