7 8 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



If, for example, the shell of an oyster be carefully 

 opened, and as little as possible of the fluid within be 

 spilled, a pair of fine scissors will readily remove a portion 

 of one of the gills. Placing this upon a slide, adding a 

 drop or two of the fluid, separating the filaments one from 

 another, and covering the specimen lightly with a thin 

 piece of glass, it is perfectly ready for examination by the 

 microscope. This instrument will show the cilia forming 

 several rows, beating and lashing the water, and producing 

 in it an infinity of currents. 



Well might old Leeuwenhoeck exclaim, as he looked 

 through his microscope at the beard of one of these 

 creatures, " The motion I saw in the small component 

 parts of it was so incredibly great, that I could not be 

 satisfied with the spectacle ; and it is not in the mind of 

 man to conceive all the motions which I beheld within the 

 compass of a grain of sand." And yet the indefatigable 

 Dutch naturalist beheld but a dim and misty indication of 

 the exquisite ciliary apparatus by which these motions are 

 effected, compared with what may be witnessed by the aid 

 of the much improved instruments of our own time. 



On functions so mysterious and marvellous, shrouding 

 in darkness the proudest ingenuity of man, and leading us 

 directly to contemplate the glory of the Infinite, whose 



" - - creating hand 

 Nothing imperfect, or deficient, left 

 Of all that He created," 



depends the growth no less than the life of an oyster. 

 Wonderful oyster ! only like a drop of candle-grease at 

 first, and, on the third day after "the spat" was cast, a 

 quarter of an inch in width, and, in three months, as large 

 as a shilling ; how it could become so is an interesting 

 question. 



