OYSTERS. 369 



Preston Pans far up the estuary of the river ; but, curiously enough, 

 all these great banks, without exception, have been impoverished, and 

 all but exhausted, by improvident dredging, in spite of the " close 

 season " which has always existed.* 



" He was a bold man who first ate an oyster," has been said before. 

 The name of the courageous individual has not been recorded, but 

 Mr. Bertram, in his " Harvest of the Sea," tells us a legend concerning 

 him : " Once upon a time," it must have been a long time ago, " a 

 man of melancholy mood was walking by the shores of a picturesque 

 estuary, listening to the monotonous murmur of the sad sea-waves, 

 when he espied a very old and ugly oyster-shell all coated over with 

 parasites and sea-weeds. It was so unprepossessing that he kicked 

 it with his foot, and the animal, astonished at receiving such rude 

 treatment on its own domain, gaped wide with indignation, prepara- 

 tory to closing its bivalve still more tightly. Seeing the beautiful 

 cream-coloured layers that shone within the shelly covering, and 

 fancying that the interior of the shell itself must be beautiful, he lifted 

 up the aged ' native ' for further examination, inserting his finger and 

 thumb within the valves. The irate mollusc, thinking, no doubt, 

 that this was meant as a further insult, snapped its pearly door 

 down upon his finger, causing him considerable pain. After releasing 

 his wounded digit, our inquisitive gentleman very naturally put it in 

 his mouth. ' Delightful !' exclaimed he, opening wide his eyes ; 

 ' what is this ?' and again he sucked his finger. Then the great 

 truth flashed upon him that he had found out a new delight had, in 

 fact, achieved the most important discovery ever made. He proceeded 

 at once to realize the thought. With a stone he opened the oyster's 

 stronghold, and gingerly tried a piece of the mollusc itself. ' Deli- 

 cious !' he exclaimed ; and there and then, with no other condiment 

 than its own juice, with no accompaniment of foaming brown stout 

 or pale Chablis to wash it down, no newly-cut, well-buttered brown 

 bread, did that solitary anonymous man inaugurate the first oyster 

 banquet." 



* The cause of the present scarcity of oysters is a much- vexed question. Mr. Frank 

 Buckland, the greatest living authority on oyster and fish culture, attributes it to 

 sudden changes of temperature at the critical period when the spat is newly formed, 

 rather than to over-dredging. ED. 



2 B 



