98 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



floating masses are widely distributed by the flux and 

 reflux of the tide ; and, strange to say, they are secure 

 while other substances are in peril, for they are not exposed 

 to destruction like the eggs and fry of various creatures, 

 nor are they employed as bait or food for any tenants of 

 the waters. Curious then, is such a mass ; but far more 

 curious still will it appear if a portion of it be taken and 

 minutely examined. 



The earliest account we 'have of such inspection is 

 that of the celebrated Anthony Van Leeuwenhoeck, who, 

 in a letter to the Royal Society, describes his being on the 

 3rd of September, 1697, at the house of a relation in 

 Rotterdam, where he was regaled with English oysters, 

 which had come that morning from Zealand. He opened 

 about twenty-five, among which he found one which, when 

 he held it so that the round part of the shell came next to 

 him, the breadth of the oyster against his right hand 

 appeared to be covered with a slimy substance. Doubting 

 what it was, he rubbed some of it between his two fingers, 

 and felt something sharp, but as this impression might 

 have been produced by fine sand, he laid part of it on 

 paper, and when he had returned home, and examined it 

 by the microscope, " I saw," he says, " that all that 

 imagined slime was nothing but young oysters ; and, 

 though afterwards twenty -five oysters were opened in my 

 presence, yet I could not find one more in which such a 

 slime, or rather young oysters could be seen by the natural 

 eye." (a) 



The floating slime is, therefore, precisely the same 

 substance that Leeuwenhceck thus examined. It is called 

 the spat, and is in itself worthy of notice. So far from 



(a) "Philosophical Transactions." 



