THE OYSTER. 



We kiiow tliat, as early as the daj's of Linnajus, llie 

 " faithful compaiiiuu and servant of mankind " — for 

 So our poets style the dog — was one of the principal 

 victims of professional experimentalists [analomicoriim 

 rictima). But against their cruelly there have never 

 been wanting enthusiastic protests, and it has always 

 received a wide-spread and permanent reproach. 



No reproach, however, has been levelled at, no 

 societies for the protection of animals have censured, 

 man's cruelty towards the poor oysters ! Following 

 in the footsteps of M. Fr^dol, let us now endeavour 

 to supply this signal void. 



Man's barbarity commences in fishing for oysters; 

 that is, in violently dragging them from their native 

 element. Afterwards, they are placed in basins of 

 water, more or less brackish; frequently unclean; 

 and tilled with a vile green matter, which gradually 

 chokes up and colours their respiratory apparatus. 

 The oyster swells, grows fat, and speedily attains a 

 condition of obesity approximating to disease. 



When they can endure no more, and their sojourn 

 in such a medium has rendered them of a livid green, 

 they are fished for a second time. But they are never 

 again to revisit the sea, or their native rocks. They 

 will have no more water at their disposal than the 

 very small quantity of liquid contained within their 

 two valves ; a quantity barely sufficient to prevent 

 asphyxia. 



Soon afterwards, the oysters are imprisoned in a 

 narrow and obscure barrel, an ignoble prison — without 

 either door or windows. We seem to forget that they 

 are animals; pile them up like so much dead mer- 

 chandise ; heap them one upon another like paving 

 stones. 



The barrel is despatched to town by rail, and well- 

 shaken on its journey. It is delivered at a restaurant 

 or a fish-shop. 



Now comes the most critical moment for the 

 wretched molluscs ! A remorseless individual seizes 

 them in quick succession; with a large pointed knife, 

 he or she brutally amputates the portion of their body 

 adhering to the smooth inner surface of their shell, 

 and violently detaches that shell after having separated 

 the fish.* 



This cruel operation being terminated, the animal 

 is exposed, without any precautions, to currents of air. 

 It is brought, while suffering keenly, to table. There 

 a pitiless epicure sprinkles some pulverized pepper or 

 juice of citron — in other words, citric and malic acids 

 — on the body of the unforUmate, and its still bleeding 

 wound ! Next, with a small silver knife, which never 

 cuts, he a second time makes an incision in the 

 queen of molluscs; or rather, saws it, rends it, and 

 snatches it from its concave home. He seizes it with 

 a couple of pointed prongs which he digs into its 

 liver and stomach, and precipitates the delicious but 

 agonized morsel, into his mouth. His teeth compress 

 and crush it, knead the living and palpitating sub- 

 stance, reducing to a shapeless mass its organs — first 

 murdered, then triturated, and finally absoibed in its 

 blood, its fat, and its bile ! 



* "The ancients," as Seneca informs us, "opened iheir 

 0}'sters at table ; each man fur bimself." 



You will assert, peihajis, that the oysters have 

 neither teeth, arms, nor legs; that they are without 

 eyes, ears, and nose ; that they neither move nur 

 cry out ! 



That these statements are true, we fully admit ; but 

 negative characteristics do not prevent them from 

 fccliny and stiffh-iiig* Two great German [ihysiolu- 

 gists, SIcssieurs Brandt and Ratzeburg, have shown 

 that tliey possess a tolerably developed nervous system. 

 Therefore, as they can feel, they must suffer. Quud 

 cral demonstrandum. 



Let us hasten, nevertheless, to reassure the minds 

 of our fishers, breeders, vendors, openers, and con- 

 sumers. We may excuse the iudifl'erence of societies 

 for the protection of animals, and the tilence of pro- 

 fessed philanthropists, by the enormous difference 

 which exists between these imperfect molluscs and 

 ' the superior animals — a difference so great that their 

 appearance wholly fails to connect them in the minds 

 of the public with the common idea of an animal. 

 They are inhabitants of another element than ours ; 

 they live in a medium where we cannot live ; they 

 present to the gaze a degraded structure, an obscure 

 vitality, imperfect movements, and imdefinaUe man- 

 ners. We can therefore see them mutilated, or 

 mutilate them ourselves, masticate and swallow ihem, 

 without emotion and without compunction ! 



It is told of a man of science, who dwelt at the 

 seaside, that one day he purchased a dozen oysters 

 from a sincere desire to study their organization. He 

 turned them over and over, examined their various 

 parts outside and inside, drew them, and described 

 them. After he had finished his task, he found 

 that the interesting molluscs had lost none of their 

 excellent qualities, and his study of them in no wise 

 prejudiced him against swallowing them. 



This story, says M. Fredol — whose lively sum- 

 mary we are here adopting — has always appeared to 

 us apociyphal ; because, generally, when one has 

 dissected an animal, good or bad, one is not the least 

 tempted to eat it. Nay, more, zoologists who under- 

 stand, ex professo, the organization of oysters, onli- 

 narily endeavour to dismiss all thoughts of past 

 dissections, and to ignore their very knowledge, when 

 they would taste without repugnance these very esti- 

 mable animals." 



For this reason, we have hesitated for some time to 

 include in our work a more or less anatomical resume 

 of the facts collected by zoologists, respecting the 

 organs of our famous but imfortunate bivalves. And 

 we beg the reader, if he is on the point of regaling 

 himself with a dish of oysters, not to read the details 

 we are about to give. We should be sorry to injine 

 his appetite. 



Let us suppose that we have before our eyes a fine, 

 fresh, and well-fattened oyster, which has been care- 

 fully opened, and is spread out before us in its concave 

 shell. 



At the first glance we see a compact, soft, and very 

 flat animal, semi-transparent, and of a greyish or 



* " Because an animal has no nerves," says Voltaire, " is it 

 impassible ? We cannot suppose so impertinent a contradiction 

 in nature." 



