The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1894-11-23
THE INOFFENSlVE OYSTER.

Those who eat these oysters will be in
terested in some of the facts concerning
the oyster. The enemy encountered be-
fore meeting the gormand is the drumfsh.
The drumtish illustrates one of the Gu
rious freaks of nature. Usually when ma
ture arms hereditary enemy of some
other living thing it is equipped with
means to conceal its approach. The feet
of a heron fold up so that when it walks
in the water it sticks it's legs in like the
point of knife, and the web open out
under the water. The tiger approaches
its prey noiselessly, and the chameleon
adapts itself to the color of the trees so
that it can not be seen.
But this interesting principle of nature
is reversed in the case of the drumfish.
The drumfish notifies the oyster of its ap-
proach. 1t is provided with natural
drum which it beats, and when a shoal of
drumfish come along they make a noise
like fife and drum corps. But the drum
ming does not help the oyster the least bit,
because the oyster cannot run away. He
hears the drummers coming. Their loud
booming can be heard on any oyster bed
on still night.
Quite different is the method of the star
fish. He is another hereditary enemy of
the oyster. The starfish gives no notice of
his approach.
The starfish has no bones AMI is like a
piece of rubber There is hardly any limit
to the stretch of its mouth. He can keep
on stretching his mouth until it envelops
the largest oyster. Then he begins to con-
tract his mouth as it goes under the shell
of the oyster like thin layer of flesh, and
although the oyster is larger than the star
fish vet he finds himself to his infinite
amazement in the stomach of the latter.
Here an interesting process begins. The
startish squeezes and squeeZes until the
oyster sets up what fisherman the other
day called a "holler." The oyster in his
agony as the vicelike grip of the startish
closes in about him opens his mouth just
one little bit, and the moment he does so
he is gone, for the starfish is loaded with
a sort of poison for just this emergency.
He has a little bill like hypodermic
syringe This is slipped in between the
shells of the oyster the minute he opens
them and a deadening liquid injected This
deprives the oyster of all further fight, and
the starfish simply sucks him out from his
shell. Then the starish unrolls his stom-
ach and makes off with the dainty morse',
leaving the empty shell for the disgusted
planter of the oyster to haul to the surface.
Your oyster must be at least years old.
You can take up the shell and count each
wear of growth. 1t seems funny to good
many people that the oyster should not
only grow in size, but that the shell should
also grow with him. The shell only grows
frontward All the increase is made about
the lips by the laying on of thin layers of
shell from lime extracted from the water.
Where the hinge is there is never any ma
terial growth.
BY the way, very few people are aware
that the tail end of an oyster contains its
mouth. The oyster feeding at the wrcng
end gets his food in nicely purified con-
dtion, as it must first pass through multi
tudc of gills and thin lips, which clear it of
many ingredients.
The stronghold of the oyster is in his
abductor muscle. That is the scientific
name of the thick, heavy muscle which
holds both shells together, and it is here
that all the physical strength of the oyster
is concentrated. His heart, his lungs, his
stomach and other organs are scattered
about in a curious medley, seemingly held
| together by light flaments.