Oysters and other Edible Mollusca. 133 



The English native oyster of the coasts of Kent and 

 Essex is distinguished from all others: — i. By its peculiar 

 flavour and delicacy. 2. By the colour of its lobes and 

 mantle, which are of a clear green hue, due to the marine 

 plants on which it feeds. 3. By its thin and translucid 

 shell of a brilliant pearly interior, unlike the common 

 oyster which has a large calcareous centre, indicating an 

 inferior quality. 



The English native oyster contains iron and alkaline 

 iodides, which renders this mollusc sweet and wholesome, 

 and nourishing food. 



Now that the genuine Whitstable oyster fetches 3^. 6d. 

 the dozen, and is likely to cost 4^"., if not more, soon — 

 with oysters, in a word, at threepence halfpenny each, and 

 threatening to rise to fourpence—anything that affects, or 

 tends to affect, the price of this delicious bivalve cannot but 

 be matter of almost universal interest. It is certainly cause 

 for great regret that the supply of the best kind of oysters 

 should have fallen so short as it has done of late years. 

 The oyster is not a luxury which only very rich people can 

 expect to command, but it ought to be within the reach of 

 all persons of moderate means. It is essentially the most 

 popular, as well as palatable, of delicacies. It is not many 

 years since the best " natives " from Whitstable and Col- 

 chester were only sixpence a dozen in a West-End estab- 

 lishment, and " seconds " but two-thirds of that sum ; and 

 then the City clerk, emerging hungry from the theatre, 

 could appease his appetite with oysters and draught stout, 

 secure from any suspicion of undue extravagance. Those 

 golden days unfortunately have fled, and, unless active and 

 practical steps be taken to replenish our oyster beds, they 

 can never be expected to return. 



The oyster is not, strictly speaking, a mollusc of the sea. 



