rOISONOUS MOILUSCA. 19 



months that have no R in their names. * It seems certain 

 also that oysters, in general wholesome and easy of digestion, 

 do occasionally become noxious when in season, as was par- 

 tially observed in Holland during the year 1821. f Lentilius 

 mentions that when he was at the Hague in 1713, a certain 

 ambassador gave a luxurious supper to some of both sexes of 

 his own rank, and that no delicacy might be wanting oysters 

 of a green colour were procured from England. All who eat 

 of these were immediately seized with severe colics, and 

 were with difficulty cured. It was afterwards ascertained, 

 says Lentilius, that the merchant, whom he anathematizes 

 with his whole race, had pawned upon the ambassador some 

 common oysters, tinted with copper, for the true greens. J 

 In the West Indies, some susjiicion is attached to those 

 oysters w^hich adhere to the mangrove trees ; and in China, 

 as I am informed by my friend Dr. W. Baird, the sailors in 

 our India merchantmen are prohibited from purchasing a 

 large clustered kind of oyster, taken from a bed near the mouth 

 of the river at Whampoa, and brought for sale by the natives, 

 it having been found that they often were the cause of un- 

 pleasant symptoms. § On the shores of the West Indies, 

 there is found a large pale Chiton, said to be poisonous ; 

 while again in the East, the fish of Mitra episcopalis enjoys, 

 probably unjustly, the same reputation, but you must be 

 guarded against the assertion of those who say that this Mol- 

 lusk wounds them who w^ould touch it wdth a kind of pointed 

 trunk; II this can only be the proboscis, an instrument vmfit 

 for the purjjose, but of extraordinary length, the animal being 

 able, according to Mr. Stutchbury, to project it to the dis- 

 tance of five inches. ^ But certainly of all Mollusca the 



* " Now the fishes called oysters, 

 Are in their operative moistures ; 

 For now the month hath yet an R in 't, 

 Astrologers do see so far in 't." 

 — From " Poor Robin," an almanack for 1685, quoted in Gentlcm. Mag. 

 V. XV. n. s. p. 607. 



t Edin. Med. Surg. Journ. xviii. 320. See also Christison on Poisons, 

 p. 469, for some additional examples. " Dr. Clarke believes that even whole- 

 some oysters have a tendency to act deleteriously on women innnediately 

 after delivery. He asserts that he has repeatedly found them to induce 

 apoplexy or convulsions ; that the symptoms generally came on the day 

 after the oysters were taken ; and tliat two cases of the kind proved fatal." 

 % Ephemerid. Acad. Leopold, cent, 8, 450. 



§ Osbeck mentions these oysters, " which the Chinese called Hao." 

 " It was plainly visible," he adds, "that they came out of a clayey bottom," 

 but he says nothing of any injurious quality they had. — Voyage to China, 

 ii. 30. ■ II Turt Gmel. iv. 377. 



^ Gray Spic. Zool. 4. See a figure of it in Swainson's " Alalacology," 

 p. 128, no. 13 ; and in Mrs. Gray's Fig. Mollusc. Anim. pi. 2S, fig. 6. 



c 2 



