THE OVSTER. 203 
worthy of the name where the oyster does not appear among the 
first dishes. Indeed, it has well been said to be the key to that 
paradise which we call the appetite. “There is no alimentary 
substance,” says Reveillé-Parise, “even bread not excepted, which, 
under certain circumstances, will not produce indigestion; but this 
is a charge which cannot be laid against the oyster.” 
They may be eaten in almost any quantity without producing 
any of those evils to which our flesh is heir. We might chronicle 
the names and deeds of notorious oyster-eaters—men who could 
eat thirty and forty dozen, without any inconvenience—men who 
have in their lifetime demolished a whole bank; but we refrain 
from publishing the degradation of our own kind. 
However, every one’s experience is ready to testify that this 
celebrated mollusk is most digestible; but, perhaps, the reason is 
little suspected. The real secret of the great digestibility of the 
oyster lies in the fact that, although its substance is most nutritive, 
yet it contains a very small quantity of azotised matter—or matter 
containing nitrogen—of which the fleshy parts of the body are 
composed. An average-sized man requires twelve ounces of such 
food daily; and if he only eat oysters, he must swallow sixteen 
dozen of the mollusks to supply the requisite nutriment. 
Oyster-fishing is carried on variously in different localities. 
Round Minorca, intrepid divers, with a hammer attached to their 
right hand, descend some twelve fathoms, and bring up a quan- 
tity of the detached bivalves in their left hand. Two fisher- 
men usually join in the undertaking, and dive in turns until they 
fill their boat. Upon the coasts of England and France a dredging 
machine is used, which is a strong net, with an iron rim weighing 
some twenty pounds; this is attached to the boat by a rope, and 
as the men pull the boat over the bank, the dredger loosens the 
bivalves off the rock, and they are caught in the net, and so taken 
up. The fishers are careful only to dredge certain zones of the 
bank, leaving those which have been fished time to recruit their 
loss; yet this mode of taking the oyster is necessarily destructive, 
and, in fact, our oyster supply is rapidly and seriously diminishing 
—a result chiefly due to this reckless dredging. 
On the coast of Campeachy, in Mexico, the oysters fix them- 
