OSTREAD/E. 
331 
' V W lie espied a very old and ugly oyster-slicll all coated over with 
P'^asites and sea-weeds. It was so unprepossessing that he kicked 
^ With his foot, and the animal, astonished at receiving such rude 
^eatment on its own domain, gaped wide with indignation, prepara- 
toi 7 to closing its bivalve still more tightly. Seeing the beautiful 
''ream-coloured layers that shone within the shelly covering, and 
fancying that the interior of the shell itself must be beautiful, he lifted 
n P the aged ‘ native ’ for further examination, inserting his finger and 
fhumb within the valves. The irate mollusc, thinking, no doubt, 
^at this was meant as a further insult, snapped its pearly door 
|Wn upon his finger, causing him considerable pain. After releasing 
rj 8 Wounded digit, our inquisitive gentleman very naturally put it in 
8 mouth. ‘ Delightful !’ exclaimed he, opening wide his eyes ; 
' vl 'at i s this?’ and again he sucked his finger. Then the great 
fruth flashed upon him that he had found out a new delight— bad, in 
achieved the most important discovery ever made. He proceeded 
at °Qce to realise the thought. With a stone he opened the oyster’s 
8 | l onghold, and gingerly tried a piece of the mollusc itself. ‘ Deli- 
as !’ he exclaimed, and there and then, with no other condiment 
"'i its own juice, with no accompaniment of foaming brown stout 
Pale Chablis to wash it down, no newly-cut, well-buttered brown 
Jle ad, did that solitary anonymous man inaugurate the first oyster 
bail( ruet.” 
■Another story makes the act of eating the first oyster a punish- 
l6 nt. X'Pg poetaster also had his views on the subject : 
“ The man had sure a palate covered o’er 
With brass, or steel, that on the rocky shore 
First broke the oozy oyster’s pearly coat, 
And risked the living morsel down his throat.” 
And 
Poet f 
over since men have gone on eating oysters. Emperors and 
, > princes and priests, pontiffs and statesmen, orators and painters, 
feasted on the favoured bivalve. 
Alan has made use of the oyster from the most remote antiquity, 
hiong the dfibris of festivals which precede by ages the epoch of 
r 'ften history, oyster-shells are found. On the “ midden heaps of 
a ^Aern Europe they are often discovered, mingling with other rubbish 
vvitli stone implements, evidently the refuse of very ancient 
6a sts. \y e } lave all read of t t ic c i ass i c feasts of the Romans, which 
