TURKEY AND OYSTERS. 239 



knows which are the females. They all lay eggs after 

 the queer fashion already mentioned, they all dismiss 

 abundance of young oysters from their shells, and no 

 one even knows how they do it. Hundreds of oysters 

 have been examined by our keenest anatomists, and 

 the only conclusion that they have decided upon is 

 that an oyster cannot be crossed in love because there 

 is no other sex to fall in love with, unless, Narcissus- 

 like, the creature should suffer from disappointed 

 affection for itself. In fact, the oyster carries out prac- 

 tically, with a trifling variation, the suggestion of the 

 well-known song, and the husband and the wife can 

 safely say that 



They are saved so much bother, 

 For they are both one another, 

 And not themselves at all. 



And yet the oyster is a large-hearted being, though 

 with little brain, from which we might infer that its 

 affections were strong and its intelligence weak, did 

 not the previous observations prove there is no place 

 for love. As to intellect, the creature needs but little, 

 and has but little. It knows when to open and when 

 to shut its shell, which articles of food to accept and 

 which to reject, and considering the stationary life 

 which it leads, a solitary being among thousands, like 

 prisoners in close confinement and contiguous cells, it 

 has quite as much intellect as it requires. 



Here I find I must pause. While describing the 

 oyster, its curious structures and habits, I recognise 



