195 
Cir PER ox xX. 
THE OYSTER. 
EVERY quadruped and every bird, even if it find not a friend in 
man, yet has a protector from the cruelty of man in the Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Perhaps it is that 
this admirable society finds that it has as much as it is able to 
do in looking after the interests of the terrestrial animals, without 
searching the world of the sea for fit objects over which to extend 
its protecting arm; or it may be that the sufferings of the denizens 
of the sea who have the misfortune to fall into the hands of the 
lords of creation, have never been brought under the Society’s 
notice. But, so far as we know, no effort has ever been made 
to defend the marine inhabitants from the ill treatment many of 
them receive. Let us, for example, tell the tale of the oysters’ 
woes. 
The dredge, with a violent wrench, tears them from their 
native rock. Lifted from the water, they are, especially in France, 
carried to “oyster parks”—long, canal-like excavations—filled 
with green, stagnant salt water. The green matter, which makes 
the water all but offensive, penetrates the systems of the poor 
mollusks compelled to inhale it. The oyster under this régze 
fattens, and soon attains that state of obesity so relished by the 
connoisseur, but which is really the result of disease induced by 
the unwholesome water of the park. Imagine the unspeakable 
disgust of the bivalve, after living in the beautifully clear and 
fresh water of the ocean, at being immured in a stagnant pool, 
whose water is seldom changed, but always charged with filth. 
When the miserable creature has attained a livid green colour, 
it is fished up a second time—not, alas! to be returned to its 
native sea, but packed in a hamper—an ignoble prison-house, 
without door or window; with only as much of the life-giving 
water as it can contain between its tightly-closed valves, it is 
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