The Oysters 



The growing oyster-beds about San Francisco Bay are stocked 

 with 0. Virginica. "Seed" as large as a silver quarter is shipped 

 in barrels across the continent, packed in damp seaweed. They 

 illustrate the oyster's tenacity of life, for they live and grow and 

 fatten for market. They spawn freely, but the young die, prob- 

 ably because the water is too cold. 



The Lurid Oyster (0. liirida, Cpr.) a native of the Pacific 

 coast, is small and has a thin purplish shell. It varies from round 

 to oblong. Its flavour is indifferent. Length, 2 inches. 



Habitat. — Pugent Sound to California. 



The Tree or Coon Oysters (0. jrons, Linn.) are found 

 growing together, forming masses as big as a bushel basket hang- 

 ing from the supple aerial roots of the red mangrove in southern 

 Florida, and built into the rocky breastworks of many a coral 

 beach. They extend to North Carolina-. The individual oysters 

 are small, with thick, rough, shapeless valves. It is surprising 

 that it pays at all to open them. Yet I recall a most delectable 

 stew made of this strange fruit of the mangrove tree. Raccoons 

 feed upon them with avidity. 



Of many species of oysters I make no mention. In spite 

 of frills and plaits they are recognisable as oysters. The Chinese 

 cultivate at least one species. There is a rumour of a Japanese 

 oyster that measures a full yard in length. Its flesh is said to 

 be disappointingly tough. 



The Oyster s Anatomy. — The oyster is, to the average mind, 

 a formless mass of succulent tissue, shaped by benign Providence 

 to descend with ease "into the eager and expectant tomb." 

 That is because anatomisation is a laboratory process, and we are 

 accustomed to meet the oyster only at meal-time. As a living 

 creature it is wonderfully made. Take a freshly-opened oyster 

 of good size and examine it with care , you will soon forget that 

 it is edible. 



That enveloping web is the mantle; between the oyster and 

 the shell this protecting garment lies ; its surface secretes the 

 shell. See the cut stub of the adductor muscle in the middle of 

 the body. By it the two shells were bound together in life. 

 Lift the delicate mantle, and you see two thin, semi-circular 

 leaves, free at their outer borders. These are the gills. Under 

 them lies the central body mass; a second pair of gills is under 

 it, and another mantle fold. On the hinge side of the muscle 



424 



