CHAP, vrn.] ANCIENT KNOWLEDGE OF THE OYSTER. 333 



pheasant and the plump turkey. But September, and not 

 August, is the right month for the inauguration of the oyster 

 season, although, by ancient custom, perhaps originating in 

 the impatience of our gourmets, the proper date has been anti- 

 cipated, and oyster-eating has become general even so early 

 as the 5th of August. It is wrong, however, to partake of 

 oysters thus early as wrong as it was three centuries ago to 

 eat them on St. James's day, although the superstition of the 

 period gave weight to the act ; as in those days there existed 

 a proverb that persons who ate oysters on the 25th of July 

 would have plenty of money all the rest of the year. 



In those remote times the knowledge of sea-produce was 

 exceedingly limited, as people could only guess the proper 

 season for indulging in what we call " shell-fish ;" arid al- 

 though it is not easy, from the difficulty of obtaining access 

 to sea animals, to obtain accurate information about their 

 growth and habits, yet it is pleasing to think that we know a 

 great deal more of those interesting creatures than our fore- 

 fathers ever did. Our worthy ancestors, for instance, were 

 quite content to swallow their oysters without inquiring very 

 minutely about how they were bred; the oyster-shell was 

 opened simply that its contents might be devoured along with 

 the necessary quantity of bread and butter and brown stout. 

 They did not think of the delicacy as a subject of natural 

 history with them it was simply a delicious condiment. 

 But in the present day that style of eating has been alto- 

 gether reformed : people like to know what they eat ; and 

 from the investigations of M. Coste and other naturalists we 

 now know as much about the oyster, and the mollusca in 

 general, as we do about the Crustacea. 



Generally speaking, many curious opinions have been 

 held about shell-fish. At one time they were thought to be 

 only masses of oily or other matter scarcely alive and in- 

 sensible to pain. Who could suppose, it was asked, that a 



