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 m 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. lurida, 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 m 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 paip of gills is under 

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



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