382 THE OCEAN WORLD. 
part. Certain distinguished amateur performers adopted and _pro- 
claimed the principle of dividing transversely the body of the mollusc, 
and eating the cushion only. Natural history explains this gastro- 
nomical discovery. It recognises the fact that the bile secreted by 
the liver is contained in this substance, that it accelerates while it 
exhausts the qualitative surface of the tongue and palate, aiding also 
the functions of the stomach. 
We have described the organisation of the oyster, and we have 
said something of the enjoyment it confers. Did it ever occur to the 
various societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals to con- 
sider whether the oyster might not be a very proper object of their 
care? Let us see if we can make out a case for them. 
We commence operations upon them by dragging them violently 
from their own element. We place them out afterwards in water- 
parks, more or less briny and unsuitable, filled with villanous green 
matter, which presently pervades their breathing apparatus, impreg- 
nating, obstructing, and colouring it ; the oyster swells, fattens, and 
soon attains that state of obesity which verges on sickness. 
When the poor creature has attained its livid green colour, it 
is fished up a second time. Alas! it is now doomed neither to 
return to the sea, to the park, nor to its native rock. It has water 
at its disposal only in the very small quantity which it can retain 
between its two valves, a quantity scarcely sufficient to keep away 
asphyxia. It is shut up in an obscure narrow basket—an ignoble 
prison-house, without door or window. It seems to be forgotten that 
they are animals: they are piled upon the pavement like inert mer- 
chandise. The basket is carried by railway; the animal, shaken out of 
existence almost, is at last landed at the door of some oyster-shop; and 
this is the critical moment for the poor bivalve! It is scarcely thrown 
into a tub with water enough to remind it of its former luxurious 
life, when it is again seized by the pitiless master of its fate. With a 
great knife he brutally opens the shell, cuts through the muscle by 
which it adheres to the valve, and violently detaches it, after breaking 
the hinges. It is now laid out on a plate, exposed to every current 
of air, and in this state of suffering it is carried to the table. There 
the pitiless gourmet powders it over with the most pungent pepper, 
squeezes over the wounded and still bleeding body the abomination 
of its race in the shape of citric acid or vinegar, and then, alas! with 
a silver knife which cannot cut, he wounds and bruises it a second 
time ; or, worse still, he saws and tears and rends it from its remaining 
shell; he seizes it with a three-pronged fork, which is driven through 
