34 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



And the boar-fish sends forth ; and in its narrow strait 

 Messene cherishes the largest cockles. 

 In Ephesus you shall catch chemae, which are not bad ; 

 And Chalcedon will give you oysters." (b) 



Aristotle has given us so precise a description of the 

 tethea as to leave not a shadow of doubt that the tunicated 

 molluscs, or ascidia, are denoted by the term. 



Dr. Schliemann found oyster-shells in large numbers 

 in the ruins of all the five pre-historic settlements at His- 

 sarlik, showing that oysters must have been a favourite 

 food with all the early settlers, and their abundance in the 

 first and oldest city is confirmed by Professor R. Vir- 

 chow. 



As the old Greeks ate sea-urchins, limpets, sea- 

 anemones, balani, &c., we see no reason why they should 

 not have swallowed tunicated molluscs : a species of this 

 family is at present eaten in South America ; when boiled 

 or roasted it is said to taste like lobster. 



Aristotle was well acquainted with oysters, but nowhere 

 lets us know whether he was ever in the habit of tickling 

 his philosophic throat with the dainty morsels. He uses 

 the term ostrea, sometimes to denote conchiferous molluscs 

 generally, at other times oysters proper. In the concluding 

 chapters of the Timaeus, in which Plato inculcates the 

 Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls, after 

 having disposed of the probable future estate of those men 

 who have lived effeminately they were to be changed into 

 women and those who have passed their time frivolously 

 -they were to be changed into birds and those who had 

 paid no attention to philosophy they were to be turned 



(b} Athenaeus " Deipnosophists," vol. I, bk. 3, p. 154. 

 (c} "Troja," by Dr. Henry Schliemann, see note 6, p. 285. 



