124 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE, 
anachronism whose realization it would be impossible to conceive. And thus we 
have, only on a grand scale, one of those singular chains of cause and effect of 
which naturalists have pointed out several (that of the dependence of clover upon 
cats, being perhaps the most familiar), but which, apart from that grotesqueness 
which they sometimes possess on a superficial view, are among the best illustra- 
tions of that intimate and far-reaching consensus which prevades all departments 
of life. 
Considering to what extent man is dependent upon the Palmacee, Rosacea, 
and other fruit and nut-bearing trees and plants, which, at least on the theory of 
man’s simian origin, must have been far greater if not absolute in the early period 
of his existence ; considering, too, in connection with this, that it is the Aymenop- 
tera that have contributed most to render the existence of this class of vegetation 
possible, it ceases to be a mere poetic fancy to claim for the bee and the ant the 
high merit of having literally prepared the way for the advent of man, whose 
prototype they are to so great an extent, both in their psychic and their social 
attributes. * 205 as a8 i a3 —American Entomologist. 
MAY JEWS EAT OYSTERS? 
A certain elder of the Hebrew Church in America recently propounded the 
doctrine‘that oysters are ‘‘ plants,” and are not, therefore, included among any of 
the articles prohibited as food under the Mosaiclaw. He probably based his re- 
markable discovery on the difficulty which modern research has thrown in the way 
of accurately determining the line which divides animals from plants. Some of 
the members of his church appear to accept the doctrine, and have become 
habitual eaters of oysters; while others maintain that these bivalves are ‘‘ unclean,” 
and avoid them accordingly. A question of extraordinary delicacy is thus open- 
ed up. The different views on the subject of those who do not accept the 
“plant” theory, may be expressed in the following manner. Among the various 
‘¢unclean” animals enumerated in the Levitical law, those creatures of the water 
‘¢that have neither fins nor scales,” are specifically mentioned, and it may be 
argued that oysters do not come within this category, for do we not speak of 
green-finned oysters? and are not the shells virtually ‘‘scales”? On the other 
hand snails are specifically forbidden, and it is claimed that oysters are 
really snails? but then snails might be said to be covered by the prohibition of 
‘‘creeping things,” and those that ‘‘go upon the belly,” so that the mention of 
snails ought not to be taken as including more than those particular creatures. 
Altogether the problem is as delicate as it is curious and interesting. It ought, 
however, to be met fairly, and settled authoritively. To callan oyster a ‘‘plant,” 
for the purpose of evading the generally accepted rendering of the Mosaic law is 
begging the question altogether.— Zhe Caterer. 
