350 GINGLYMACONCHA. OSTREADA. 
It is subject to great varieties in form, thickness and general 
structure ; it is as much esteemed by the moderns as by the 
ancients: the Romans were extremely fond of them, and had 
layers or stews for oysters, as we have at present. Sergius 
Orata, who lived at the time of Lucius Crassus, is supposed to 
have been the first inventor: he did not make them for in- 
dulging his appetite, but through avarice, and made great pro- 
fits from them. Orata got great credit for his Lucrine oysters ; 
for, as Pliny observes, the British were not then known. 
The ancients ate them raw, and sometimes roasted ; they 
had also a custom of stewing with mallows and docks, or with 
fish ; and they were esteemed as very nutritious diet*. 
Britain has been celebrated for its oysters from the time of 
Juvenal+, and still preserves its superiority over other coun- 
tries: they are found in natural beds on our coasts: they are 
taken by dredging for them, and are become an article of com- 
merce, both raw and pickled. 
Stews or layers of oysters are formed in places which Nature 
never allotted for them: those near Colchester have been long 
esteemed the best; but there are, however, now many other 
places, that at least rival those from Colchester, near the mouth 
of the Thames: natural beds at the mouth of the Plym river, 
and the Tamar near Saltash, and on the coasts between 
Guernsey and Jersey and France, are much better than those 
from the above-mentioned places: they also occur in the Frith 
of Forth, near Leith, abundantly, and excellent in quality, and 
are sold for 10d. a hundred. 
I will now give an extract from Bishop Sprat’s History of 
the Royal Society :— 
“Tn the month of May cast up their spawn (which the 
dredgers call their spats) ; it is like the drop of a candle, and 
as big as a halfpenny. 
«The spat cleaves to stones, old oyster-shells, pieces of 
wood and such-like things at the bottom of the sea, which they 
term cultch. 
«’T is probably conjectured that the spat in twenty-four 
hours begins to have a shell: in the month of May, the 
* Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. ix. ¢. 54. tT Sat. iv. 140. 
