OYSTERS AND OYSTER-CULTURE. 
449 
Oysters appear to have been known to the ancient as well 
as the modern populations of the globe, for we find that they 
were not only held in esteem by the Athenians, but were eaten 
extensively by the Romans, who in all probability knew quite 
as much about their cultivation as we do at the present day. 
To give the history of the oyster as it was bred, cooked, and 
eaten in the days of Horace, Cicero, Seneca, &c., would re- 
quire a volume of monstrous size, and would be quite beyond 
the space at our disposal ; so we shall dismiss the subject in 
observing that the wealthy Roman, Sergius Orata, was the 
originator of artificial oyster breeding.* He it was who 
formed the enormous beds of oysters at Baia, and who carried 
his culture of these shell-fish to such an extent both here and 
in Lake Lucrinus, that he was prosecuted for “ trespass,” by 
the celebrated orator Considius. It must also be stated, to 
the credit of the English “ natives,” that the Romans who first 
became acquainted with them in the time of Agricola, pre- 
ferred them to their own, and gave to them the name of 
“ Rutupians,” from that of the locality — Richborough 
(Rutupium) — in which they were found. 
In zoological parlance the oyster is termed Ostrcea edulis ; 
most probably our term oyster is a corruption of the generic 
title, which was also the Latin name.t The Greeks called it 
oorpEov, and used the shells as we use the balls of a ballot- 
box, the shell being termed oarpaKOv ; the expression ostracise 
was thus originated. Being possessed of a double conch which 
opens and closes by means of muscles and a hinge, it is said 
to belong to the class of bivalves, and from having its gills 
arranged in folds it is designated a Lamellibranch. The 
oyster must have existed for many centuries before a trace of 
civilization appeared in Europe, — nay, before even man himself 
came upon the scene. From the writings of the late Edward 
Forbes, we learn that “the discoveries of geologists open 
scenes of regret to the enthusiastic oyster-eater, who can 
hardly gaze upon the abundantly entombed remains of the 
apparently well-fed and elegantly- shaped oysters of our Eocene 
formation, without chasing f a pearly tear away/ whilst he 
calls to mind how all these delicate beings came into the 
world and vanished to so little purpose.” Hear Reading, in 
Berkshire, there exists a fossil bed of oysters, the specimens 
from which possess all the features of our best modern ones. 
This bed extends over more than six acres of ground and 
averages two feet in thickness ; but, large as it is, it bears no 
comparison to those which volcanic action sometimes tilts up 
* See the ninth book of Pliny’s Natural History. 
t McNicoll’s Dictionary of Natural Histoiy Terms. 1863. 
