On the Economical Uses of some species of Testacea. 241 



shells were thus put, originated the word Buccinum, which among the 

 ancients included at least a third of the known univalves.* 



VIII. MUREX ? 



Another species of Murex (?) was used by the Greeks in prepar- 

 ing a pigment for painters 5 but the color was obtained from the out- 

 side of the shell, and not from the fish, as was the purple dye.f 



IX. OsTBEA EDULis, (Linn.) — European Oyster. 



Ancient History. — The oyster has probably been used from the 

 earliest periods. As they lie in comparatively shallow water, quickly 

 increase in numbers and size, and offer a very nutricious and refresh- 

 ing food, we may reasonably suppose that the aborigines of those 

 countries where they are found, were in general well acquainted with 

 them. From Aristotle we learn that the Greeks in his time ate 

 them. J It was as early as A. U. C. 633, that the mode of fattening 

 them by laying them in pits and ponds was introduced to Rome. 

 At that time, one Sergius Orata first tried the experiment on the Lu- 

 crine oysters, and as he made much money by it and hi^ plan suc- 

 ceeding well, it rapidly spread into different districts. As Rome 

 increased in luxury, the supply from the immediate coasts was not 

 sufficient, and all the shores of the Mediterranean were ransacked 

 for the shell fish. They were frequently brought from a great dis- 

 tance, and at much expense, to be fattened in Italy for the Roman 

 feasts. They abounded at Abydos on the Hellespont ;§ but the 

 most celebrated appear to have been procured at Circseum, the La- 

 cus Lucrinus, and from Brundusium. Much however of the fame 

 of these places appears to have arisen from fashion, as we find wri- 

 ters of different times praising as tlie best those from different dis- 

 tricts. The most generally esteemed, however, seem to be those 

 from Rutupise, (now Sandwich, in Kent, England,) and which were 

 carried to Italy in great numbers. If we consider the difficulties of 



* Dillwyn's Des. Cat. Vol. 11. p. 727. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xxxii. cap. 11. Ellis' 

 Polynesian Researches, Vol. i. p. 197, where a wood cut of the instrument is 

 given. Hughes' Nat. Hist, of Barbadoes, p. 276. Potter's Archceologia Graeca, 

 Vol. II. p. 79, where there is given a long dissertation on the time in which real 

 trumpets were introduced instead of the shells. 



t " Concha quae pictoribus usui est crassitudine plurimum excedit, at fiorem 

 ilium non intra tectem, sed foris habet." Arist. de Hist. Anim. lib. v. cap. 15. 

 Inlerpr. Du Val, torn. ii. p. 844. 



t Aristotle de Hist. Animal, lib. v. cap. 15. § Virgil, Georg. i. 207. 



Vol. XXXII.— No. 2. 31 



