384 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



above the mud. When asked how, and by what means the 

 oyster can burrow ? the emphatic reply was " Well, sir, I 

 don't know but they doT 



Again you cannot convince them that five-fingers are not 

 entirely destroyed by being pulled to pieces, before being 

 thrown back into the sea- water. My attempt to teach them 

 otherwise was checked by the jocular remark " Perhaps 

 it 'uld be better, sir, to throw 'em in our neighbours' back- 

 yards for their cats, (to kill 'em, you know,) so as to give 

 us a quiet night after a hard day's work." 



I must here trespass on the reader's patience with a 

 momentary digression. In reply to the question "Does 

 an oyster burrow ? " I say, emphatically, no. It has no 

 means of so doing. An oyster is not supplied by nature 

 for such a purpose, namely, with a foot as is the cockle. 

 True, the oyster is often found imbeded in the sand or mud, 

 but, as stated in Chapter 13, this has happened from other 

 causes than that impossible one emanating from the 

 ignorant credulity of the fishermen alluded to, (Ti) say for 

 instance, the iron-jawed and gaping dredge, half gorged 

 with its captured harvest of the sea, sweeping along, 

 and, by its weight and force of progress ploughing up or 

 burying, higgledy-piggledy, the very victims for whose 

 capture it was designed. This is a common cause ; but a 

 still more common one arises from the shifting sand and mud, 

 either of which, impelled or drawn by strong under currents 



(K) And surely all right minded men will endorse my wish that, 

 if ever the ancient town of Poole, like Whitstable, aspires to and be- 

 comes possessed of a Museum no matter how small and insignificant 

 it may be in its beginning one of its most pleasing and educational 

 treasures may be a working microscope, which, with regard to the 

 oyster, if nothing else, would serve the same purpose as that alluded to 

 concerning the Whitstable dredgers. 



