The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-04-28
ROMANCE OF THE OYSTER.
THE AMERICAN SHELLFIsH HAS
DISTINCTIVE HABITS.

More Yearly-Perils of the Young
observation-disclosures of His Early Life.
How He Is Observation-Disclosures ys-
tiers.
Mary Bronson HART in Philadelphia
Ledger.
Popular fallacy sets down the oyster
as the emblem of Grass witlessness and
lumpish unprogTession. Now, by rights
the wild oyster-for all his outward
plainness-is the most picturesque of
all the monsters of the deep. Not from
the chatting dish standpoint alone is he
a thing of interest. His career reads
like stirring romance. OF all wild
oysters most picturesque is the Amer
lean. Challenge, if you will, the impu-
tation of nationality to shellfsh; the
American oyster is none the less the
personification of Yankee Doodleism.
Hise declaration of independence is
made as soon as-I had almost said
before-he is born. The effete European
Clustering lies coddled within the man.
tie of it's mother until it is of visible
size, and can sport a rudimentary
shell of its own. But the American,
mark you, deserts its happy home for
open ocean While it is yet not so much
as finished egg, mere unfertilized
possibility of an oyster.
An Oysters Millions of Eggs.
Fate willing. it meets in the sea the
vitalizing principle, and develops with
startling rapidity into a dancing slime
drop, with distinct views of it's own.
But Fate oftenest turns down her in
exorable thumb, and the rash egglet
ceases to be possibility at all Were
1t not for this wastetul provision of
Nature, in few seasons the wet sea
would become as the dry land. For as
the ordinarily provident oyster parent
presents the world yearly with some
sixteen millions of eggs, the best of
them achieving record of sixty mill
lions, 1t takes but a little figuring to
snow that If all the offspring survived,
the fourth generation of oysters would
brim the ocean beds full.
without a Friend.
To avert this calamity nature makes
life lively and strenuous for the young
oyster. Most friendless of all the
Youngsters of the earth, he is an in
FAINT Ishmael from the very egg. Sud
den chills strike through the unkindly
sea and threaten the tender life. A
cold rain sends thousands of luckless
oyster babes to an untimely grave
Great mouths cape wide to devour
him; any big, idle fish, sailing care
less, open mawed, may gulp down mil
lions of his kind, and thereafter go
nome with keen appetite for break
fast. His own mother, who is, after
all, little more than a superior sort of
slave, Will incontinently swallow him
II he comes her way. A hapless atom,
he.
The oyster nursing whisks his way
braVely through the sea of troubles. He
is now little two walled vase of
slime, with an exciting stomach and a
little tuft of hair cars to drive him
thorugh the water The wonder is that
the undirected young thing knows
what to make Of himself at all. Scien4
lists are hard put to it to discover
wherein he differs from any one of a
half dozen other minute sea babies
Nor can their strongest microscopes
search out any reason why he should
not inadvertently grow up a star fish.
But he makes no mistake. He gets his
organs proper to a well bred oyster
and builds him a little protecting shell
as fast as ever he can.
Building HIS Armor.
Spared to days of discretion, he pre-
pares TO settle down to life And here
fresh danger besets him. The choice
of bed is a life and death affair For
even now be is but one flve-hundredth
of an inch in diameter, and rather
thinner than a sheet of paper The
merest film of slime upon the shell he
fastens to is enough to asphyxiate him,
and snuff out his little vital spark. And
clean shell surfaces are by no means
common in the brackish waters of bays
and river mouths. Oyster infants are
smothered in their beds each year in
myriads.
This final peril of his free swimming
youth evaded, a clean foundation Sc
cured, the little oyster cultivates a
placid disposition and hardens his
she'll But not in unmolested peace.
AS a delicacy he is much appreciated
by the larger sort of fish, who long to
crunch his fragile house walls and
feast upon his juicy little body. His
only protection upon the native oyster
bed, were lime from dissolving shells
is to be had for the taking, and adds
layer to layer for dear life.
His Enemy, the Starfish.
But even inside crusted walls of
lime he is not safe. The starfish, that
flabby innocent called devils fingers"
has pull which avails much on the
oyster DeQS. 1t wraps It's wicked, suck
cred rays about the luckless bivavles
and patiently pulls until the oyster in
side, fairly tired out in the struggle
to hold his house together, capitulates
and is sucked into the starfsh's
greedy stomach Another enemy, the
oyster drill, whose tongue is a rasp-
ing file. perforates his thickest shell
and eats him out of house and home.
Sea worms, with the best intentions in
he t.t-fya thafx a.
about his valleys and incarcerate him,
to die of slow starvation. Barnacles
crowd him to death, and in his old age
young oysters plant themselves thick
upon his shell and smother him be-
meath them. Altogether, statiscians
say. he has but one chance in Las, 900
of reaching a ripe old age.
So much for the life of the wild oys-
ter and the losing game he plays.
Where he leaves off man takes up the
tale The dredge and the tongs of the
jolly oysterman constitute the mani
fest destiny of a right minded oyster.
~-o-4
How the Tulip Wrecked Holland
From the London Amateur Garden
ing.
In these sober days, when the tulip,
the queen Of spring flowers, is to be
bought and sold as cheaply as IS. per
hundred, it may seem hard to realize
that time was when a single bulb
would fetch as much as $3.50 to $500
Vt t. hot -. .