Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1857-03-28
SOMETHING ABOUT OYSTERS.

Look at oyster In that soft and gelatinous body
lies whole world of vitality and quiet enjoyment Some
body has styled fossiferous rocks monuments Of the
felicity of past ages An undisturbed oyster-bed is
concentration of happiness in the present. Dormant
though the several creatures there congregated SEEM
each individual is leading the beafed existence of an
Epcurean god The world without, its cares and joys
its storms and cams its passions evil and gooda are
Indifferent to the unheedng oyster. Unobservant
of what passes in its immediate vicnty its whole soul
is concentrated in ITSELF yet not sluggishly and apathe
ticay, for its body is throbbng with life and enjoy
ment The mighty is subserven to its pleasures
The rolling watt fresh and choice food within its
reach and the flow of the current feeds it without
quiring effort. Each atom of water that comes IN
contact with its delicate gs evolves its Imprisoned
air, to freshen and inygorate the creatures pelucd
blood.
Invisible to human eye unless aided by the wonderful
inventions of human science countless millions Of ybrat
ing ella moving necessarily with synchronic beat
every fibre Of each friHging eafet Well might old
Leeuwenhoek exclam, when he looked through his
croseope at the beard of she-fsh, " The motion
in the small component parts of it incredibly
great that could net be satisfied with the spectacle
and it is not in the mind of to conceive all the
tons which behed within the compass Of grain Of
sand" And yet the Dutch naturalist unaded by the
finer instruments of our time, beheld but dim and
misty indication of the exquisite eary apparatus by
which these motions effected How strange to reflect
that all this elaborate and inimitabe centryanee hes
been devised for the webeng of despised shelfsh
Nor it merely in the working members of the
that find its wonders comprised. There portions
of its frame which essential purpose in
its economy which might be omitted without disturbing
the course of its daily duties and yet constant in their
presence and position that cannot doubt their having
had their places in the original plan according to which
the organization of the mollusk first put together
These symbols of organs to be developed in creatures
higher in the scale of being-antitypes it may be- Of
limbs and anticipatiens of undeveoped These
the first draughs of parts to be made out in their
details elsewhere, serving however an end by their pre-
sence for they badges of relationship and affinity
between one creature and another In them the oyster
eater and the oyster may find bond Of sym
pathy and distant cousinhood. Had the disputatous
and needewitted schoomen known of these mysteries
of vitality, how vanly subtle would have been their spe
cuations concerning the solution of such enigmas!
But the life of shell-sh is not ofunyaryingrC
Observe the phases Of individual oyster from the mo-
of its earliest embryofe, independent of ernal
ties, to the consummson of its destiny, when the ne OF
fate shall its muscular cords and doom tc enomb-
ment in living scpulchre. How starts it for into the
world of waters? Not, unenghtened pee pie believe,
in the shape of minute bivalved protected grave fixed
and steady oysterling. No. it enters Upon its career
all life and motion, fitting about in t as gayy and
lightly butterfly swallow ssi through the ar.
Its first Appearances microscopic cysercherub Win
wing like lobes ianking mouth and shoulders unln-
numbered with inferior crural proongations 1t passes
through joyous and viyacious juyenity, skipping UP
and down if In mockery Of its heavy and immoEabe
parents. It voyages from oyster-bed to oyster-bef
and if in luck to escape the watchful yoracty OF
the thousand enemies that e in wait proEl about 70
e iii Hl sssi s sS s q Sid So-s
oyster 1t becomes the parent of fresh broods Of oyster
cherubs As such it would live and die, leaving It's
SHE'LL thickened through old age to serve as It's monu
ment throughout all tmea contribution towards 'he
construction Of fresh geological epoch ana new layer
of the earths it not for the guttony q man.
who rendng this sober citizen of the sea from has native
bed carries him unresisng to busy cities and the mum
of crowds If handsome well-shsped, and Weln
he is introduced the palaces Of the rich snd no
bic, like wit, or philosopher poet to give add
tional relish to their sumptuous feasts II STURDY,
thick backed strongtasted individual tate conslgn ma
to the capacious tub of the street-hshmonger from
whence dosed with coarse black pepper and pungent
rinepar embamed partly after the fashion Of an Egyp-
tan king he transferred to the hungry stomach q
cosermonger, or becomes the luxurious repas' u
cessful pickpocket.- Westminster Rer's~.