258 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



one of his brave courtiers, perceiving the danger, got up and shut the 

 whistlers mouth.* 



We must not omit to mention the celebrated " Whistling Caster," 

 which about forty years ago created such a sensation at the small oys- 

 ter and refreshment rooms situated in Vinegar Yard, near Catherine 

 Street, Strand. " It appears," says a writer in the " Daily Telegraph," 

 " that about the year 1840, the proprietor of the house in question, 

 which had then, as it has now, a great name for the superior excel- 

 lence of its delicate little ' natives,' heard a strange and unusual sound 

 proceeding from one of the tubs in which the shell-fish lay, piled in 

 layers one over the other, placidly fattening upon oatmeal, and await- 

 ing the inevitable advent of the remorseless knife. Mr. Pearkes, the 

 landlord, listened, hardly at first believing his ears. There was, how- 

 ever, no doubt about the matter. One of the oysters was distinctly 

 whistling, or, at any rate, producing a sort of 'sifflement' with its 

 shell. It was not difficult to detect this phenomenal bivalve, and in a 

 very few minutes he was triumphantly picked out from among his 

 fellows, and put by himself in a spacious tub with a bountiful supply 

 of brine and meal. The news spread throughout the town, and for 

 some days the fortunate Mr. Pearkes found his house besieged by 

 curious crowds. That this Arion of oysters did really whistle is 

 beyond all question. How he managed to do so is not upon record." 

 As may be imagined, the jokes to which this fresh wonder of creation 

 gave rise were unlimited ; and Thackeray was in the habit of relating 

 an amusing story of his own experience in connection with it. It 

 appears that he was one day in the shop when an American came in 

 to see this startling freak of nature ; after hearing the talented niol- 

 lusk go through its usual performance, he walked contemptuously out, 

 remarking at the same time that " it was nothing to an oyster he knew 

 of in Massachusetts, which whistled ' Yankee Doodle ' right through, 

 and followed its master about the house like a dog." Douglas Jerrold 

 surmised that the oyster had undoubtedly " been crossed in love, and 

 now whistled to keep up appearances, with an idea of showing that it 

 didn't care." The subsequent fate of this interesting creature, says 

 Mr. Walford,f " is a mystery whether he was eaten alive, or igno- 

 minously scalloped, or still more ignominiously handed over to the 

 tender mercies of a cook in the neighborhood, to be served up in a 

 bowl of oyster-sauce as a relish to a hot beefsteak. In fact, like the 



' Lucy ' of Wordsworth 



' . . . none can tell 

 When the oyster ceased to he.' 



But it is somewhat singular that so eccentric a creature should have 

 existed in the middle of London, and in the middle of the nineteenth 

 century, and that no history of his career should be on record." Last- 



* Carl Engcl, " Musical Myths and Facts," i, 92, 93. 

 f " Old and New London," iii, 281. 



