48 THE OYSTEE. 



we like, translate into a pleasant or agreeable cake; the shell, 

 it will be seen, is round like a cake, and its smoothness and 

 regularity of form render it agreeable to look upon; this species 

 too c<jmcs from tlie Indian Seas, where it is taken on sandy 

 bottoms. The American Spiny Oyster, or Spomh/lus Americanus, 



^a 



^f 



brings us into another family, that of the AYater Clams, called 

 by naturalists Spondi/lidu'; with the spines stuck out every 

 way, and no way in particular, it looks like a head of hair 

 greatly in need of the assistance of one of its pectinated 

 relatives. The spccififi name of this curious shell explains 

 itself; the generic name comes from the Latin Spondi/lia — 

 a kind of serpent. 



Passing over the family Malleidce, or Hammer Oysters, we 

 come to the JIeleagrinidce,^or Pearl Oysters, of which Fig. 1, 

 Plate VIII, is an cx;imple, this is the If. Margaritlfera of 

 naturalists, the nioUusk in whose shells pearls are chiefly found. 

 Here are two long words Meleagris is the Latin for a Guinea 

 or Turkey Hen, to the markings of whose plumage naturalists 

 miglit have imagined the shells of this genus bore some re- 

 sem))lance. There was, says the mj'thology, a celebrated hero 

 «jf antiquity named Meleaga, but we can hardly suppose that 

 there is any association between his name and that of a genus 

 of Oysters, of which edible we read the ancients Avere very 

 fond, and they are said to have had a fancy not only for the 

 inoUusk itself, but also for the pearls found in its shell, which 

 at their luxurious banquets they dissolved in wine, to make 

 the draughts richer, or at all events more expensive; and this 



