KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 
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95 
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A deserted Dove-cot on the island is tenanted 
by a pair of White Owls. ‘The Frogs are swim- 
ing about most lustily. 
Walking around the lake, our face turned home- 
wards, we had the pleasure of seeing some pairs 
of the Long-tailed Titmouse and the Cole Tit, 
both of which breed here in abundance. When 
we did sce them, our mind was musing on these 
most true lines of the great Schiller :— 
On the mountain is Freedom ! the breath of decay 
Never sullies the fresh flowing air ; 
Oh! Nature is perfect wherever we stray ; 
"Tis man that deforms it with care. 

THE FIRST OYSTER-EATER. 
THE IMPENETRABLE VEIL of antiquity 
hangs over the antediluvian oyster, but the 
geological finger-post points to the testifying 
fossil. We might, in pursuing this subject, 
sail upon the broad pinions of conjecture into 
the remote, or flutter with lighter wings in 
the regions of fable—but it is unnecessary : 
the mysterious pages of Nature are ever 
opening freshly around us, and in her stony 
volumes, amid the calcareous strata, we 
behold the precious mollusc—the primeval 
bivalve, 
—*rock-ribbed ! and ancient as the sun.” 
Bryant. 
Yet ofits early history we know nothing. 
Etymology throws but little light upon the 
matter. In vain have we carried our re- 
searches into the vernacular of the maritime 
Pheenicians, or sought it amid the fragments 
of Chaldean and Assyrian lore. To no 
purpose have we analysed the roots of the 
comprehensive Hebrew, or lost ourselves in 
the baffling labyrinths of the oriental San- 
serit. The history of the ancient oyster is 
written inno language, except in the universal 
idiom of the secondary strata ! 
Nor is this surprising, in a philosophical 
point of view. Setting aside the pre-Adamites, 
and taking Adam as the first name-giver, 
when we reflect that Adam lived 1N-land, and 
therefore never saw the succulent periphery 
in its native mud, we may deduce this rea- 
sonable conclusion: viz., that as he never 
saw it, he probably never NAMED it—never ! 
—not even to his most intimate friends. 
Such being the case, we must seek for in- 
formation in a later and more enlightened 
age. And here let me take occasion to 
remark, that oysters and intelligence are 
nearer allied than many fersons imagine. 
The relations between Physiology and Psy- 
chology are beginning to be better under- 
stood. A man might be scintillant with 
facetiousness over a plump ‘ Shrewsbury,” 
who would make a very sorry figure over a 
bowl of water-gruel. The gentle, indolent 
Brahmin, the illiterate Laplander, the fero- 
cious Libyan, the mercurial Frenchman, and 
the stolid (I beg your pardon), the stalwart 
Englishman, are not more various in their 
mental capacities than in their table 
eesthetics. 
And even in this century we see that wit 
and oysters come in together with September, 
and wit and oysters go out together in May 
—a circumstance not without its weight, and 
peculiarly pertinent to the subject-matter. 
_| With this brief but not irrelevant digression 
I will proceed. We have ‘“ Ostreuwm” from 
the Latims, “ Oester” from the Saxons, 
“ Auster” from the Teutons, “ Ostra” from 
the Spaniards, and ‘“Huwitre”’ from the French; 
words evidently of common origin, threads 
spun from the same distaff! And here our 
archeology narrows to a point, and this point 
is the pearl we are in search of: viz., the 
genesis of this most excellent fish. 
“‘ Words evidently derived from a common 
origin.” What origin? Let us examine the 
venerable page of history. Where is the 
first mention made of oysters? Hudibras 
says :— 
—“ the Emperor Caligula, 
Who triumph’d o’er the British seas, 
Took crabs and ‘oysTERS’ prisoners (mark 
that !) 
And lobsters, ’stead of cuirassiers ; 
Engaged his legions in fierce bustles 
With periwinkles, prawns, and mussels, 
And led his troops with furious gallops 
To charge whole regiments of scallops ; 
Not, like their ancient way of war, 
To wait on his triumphal car, 
But when he went to dine or sup, 
More bravely ate his captives up; 
Leaving all war by his example, 
Reduced—to vict’ling of a camp well.” 
This is the first mention in the classics of 
oysters; and we now approach the cynosure 
of our inquiry. From this, we infer that 
oysters came originally from Britain. The 
word is unquestionably primtive. The broad, 
open, vowelly sound is, beyond a doubt, the 
primal, spontaneous thought that found 
utterance when the soft, seduetive mollusc 
first exposed its white bosom in its pearly 
shell to the enraptured gaze of aboriginal 
man! Is there a question about it? Does 
not every one know, when he sees an oyster, 
that that 1s us name? And hence we reason 
that it originated*in Britain, was Latinised by 
the Romans, replevined by the Saxons, cor- 
rupted by the Teutons, and finally barbecued 
by the French. Oh, philological ladder, by 
which we mount upward, until we emerge 
beneath the clear vertical light of Truth! ! 
Methinks I see the First OYSTER-EATER! 
A brawny, naked savage, with his wild hair 
matted over his wild eyes, a zodiac of fiery 
stars tattooed across his muscular breast— 
unclad, unsandalled, hirsute, and hungry— 
he breaks through the underwoods that 
margin the beach, and stands alone upon the 

