217 



the most delicate food, and which has accordingly been eagerly 

 sought for in all ages, as one of the chief luxuries of the table. 

 Although the consumption of them has been immense from the 

 time of the Romans to the present day, yet such is the rapidity 

 of their increase, that their abundance does not appear to be 

 limited. It is believed that the Romans first devised the present 

 method of improving their good qualities, by transporting them 

 when young to favorable situations, where there is an admixture of 

 fresh water. The shells were used by the Athenians in perform- 

 ance of their right of sufi"rage, during the earlier periods of their 

 government, and the sentence of condemnation or acquittal of the 

 arraigned, was marked upon a shell ; whence the word ostracism 

 had its origin. 



The oysters of England are held in higher estimation than those 

 of Germany, France or Italy. We are informed that a foreign 

 embassador at the Hague gave a sumptuous entertainment, during 

 which oysters were introduced, that were supposed by their color 

 to be from England. But all who ate of them were immediately 

 seized with violent and continued vomiting. On enquiry it was 

 ascertained that the oysterman had tinted the common oyster with 

 verdegris, to obtain a higher price for them as English oysters. 



It is related of Apicius that he had a method of presei-ving oys- 

 ters for a long time, and that he sent them from Italy to the Em- 

 peror Trajan in Persia, as fresh as the day they were taken from 

 tlie water. There is doubtless some exaggeration in this, and it is 

 probable that his method may not have been preferable to that of 

 our oystermen, who transport the animal in kegs to great distances. 

 Aldrovandus and others of the earlier writers, entertained a singu- 

 lar and erroneous notion relative to the crab and the oyster. They 

 state that the crab, in order to obtain the animal of the oyster 

 without danger to their own claws, watch their opportunity when 

 the shell is open, to advance without noise and cast a pebble be- 

 tween their shells, to prevent their closing, and then extract the 

 animal in safety. " What craft !" exclaims the author " in ani- 

 mals that are destitute of reason and voice." We scarcely need 

 to add, that the craft existed only in the imagination of a person 

 who may have seen a crab feeding on an oyster that had fortuit- 

 ously closed on a pebble. 



In the acceptation of Linne the genus Ostrea included numer- 



17 



