ART. VI.-Report of the Commissioners appointed to Inquire into the Sea-Fisheries of the United Kingdom: Regulations relating to Oysters, and Oyster-Fishing in general. 2 vols. 1866. A FEW months ago,1 we called attention to the results of the inquiries made by the Royal Commissioners into the laws affecting our sea-fisheries, but space prevented us from noticing a very important branch of commercial enterprise, which was carefully investigated by the same Commissioners, and with similar results: we mean the Oyster-Fisheries. We propose now to consider this very important subject, and shall carefully weigh the evidence elicited by the Commissioners in their inquiries into the operations of the laws regulating oysterfishing; but before we do so, let us pause a few minutes to notice some interesting facts about this not very interestinglooking bivalve. Who was the first wise mortal to eat an oyster we shall never know. Instead of that man having his ( palate covered o'er With brass or steel, that on the rocky shore And risked the living morsel down his throat,' as Gay has imagined, we are inclined to assign to him a highly sensitive and exquisite taste, a prophetic appreciation of a dainty, as the tempting morsel lay all succulently upon its deepest valve-which does him much credit. However, it is certain that oysters have long been considered, not only a valuable article of diet, but a delicious adjunct to the dinner and supper-table. But oysters were in existence years before oystereaters in the human form were thought of. '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 a pearly tear away," whilst he calls to mind how all these delicate beings came into the world, and vanished, to so little purpose." If this applied to a time when 'natives' were comparatively reasonable in price, how much more forcibly does it apply now that they are 1d. apiece! What animals enjoyed oyster repasts in these geological days, when, so far as human enemies are concerned, 1 North British Review, June 1866. 2 Forbes and Hanley's Molluscs. 'Piscis adhuc [illi] populo sine fraude natatab; whether ancient star-fish or boring whelk-tingles fed with impunity on the juices of the Eocene oysters, we cannot tell; but to judge from the abundant remains of these conchiferous molluscs in certain formations, it would appear that then was the golden age of oysters! Oyster-shells have been found abundantly amongst the refuse-heaps or shell-mounds (Kjökkenmödding) of Denmark; and the fact has been adduced by Sir Charles Lyell, and other eminent geologists, as evidence of important physical changes. 'At certain points along the shores of nearly all the Danish islands, mounds may be seen, consisting chiefly of thousands of castaway shells of the oyster, cockle, and other molluscs of the same species as those which are now eaten by man. These shells are plentifully mixed up with the bones of various quadrupeds, birds, and fish, which served as the food of the rude hunters and fishers by whom the mounds were accumulated. I have seen similar large heaps of oysters and other marine shells, with interspersed stone implements, near the sea-shore, both in Massachusetts and in Georgia, U.S., left by the native NorthAmerican Indians at points near to which they were in the habit of pitching their wigwams for centuries before the white man arrived.'2 Scattered all through these refuse-heaps are flint-knives, hatchets, and other instruments of stone, etc. The men of the stone period must have opened their oysters with these flintknives, for bronze and iron were as yet unknown. Rather a difficult matter, we may be inclined to think, for by your uninitiated amateur oyster-opener the feat is seldom accomplished either gracefully or successfully; but practice always makes perfect, and even, as Epicharmus tersely observes,— ὄστρεια συμμεμυκότα τὰ διελεῖν μὲν ἐστὶ χαλεπὰ, καταφαγεῖν δ' εὐμαρέα. 'Oysters with closed shells, very difficult to open, but very good to eat,' may have their valves forced asunder by rude implements. The shape of the oyster, as indeed that of the conchifera generally, must, from the earliest times, have suggested the need of some instrument to insert between the shells, for necessity is the mother of invention. According to Dr. Milligan, in places on the shores of Van Dieman's Land, when the shells of the mounds are univalves, 'round stones of different sizes are met with, one, the larger, on which they broke the shells, the other, and smaller, having served as the hammer to break them with. 1 Ovid's Fasti, lib. vi. 174. 3 Athenæus, Deipnosoph. iii. 30. But where the refuse-mounds con 2 Lyell's Antiquity of Man, pp. 11, 12. sist of oysters, mussels, cockles, and other bivalves, there flint-knives, used to open them with, are generally found."1 Who would have thought that the presence of oysters amongst the Danish kitchen-middings' can have any bearing upon such a question as the antiquity of these shell-mounds, or upon the present configuration of a portion of the land? But so it is, for the common oyster (ostrea edulis) attaining its full size is found amongst these refuse-heaps. But at present the common oyster 'cannot live in the brackish waters of the Baltic, except near its entrance, where, whenever a north-westerly gale prevails, a current setting in from the ocean pours in a great body of salt water. Yet it seems that during the whole time of the accumulation of the "shellmounds," the oyster flourished in places from which it is now excluded. In like manner, the eatable cockle, mussel, and periwinkle (cardium edule, Mytilus edulis, Littorina littorea), which are met with in great numbers in the "refuse-heaps," are of the ordinary dimensions which they acquire in the ocean, whereas the same species now living in the adjoining parts of the Baltic only attain a third of their natural size, being stunted and dwarfed in their growth by the quantity of fresh water poured by rivers into that inland sea. Hence, we may confidently infer that in the days of the aboriginal hunters and fishers, the ocean had freer access than now to the Baltic, communicating, probably, through the peninsula of Jutland, Jutland having been, at no remote period, an archipelago.'" But we must pass on from the contemplation of oysters as they are found in geological strata, or in the shell-mounds of prehistoric times, to oysters of genuine history. The ancients, it is well known, were fully alive to the excellency of oysters, and ate them raw, or cooked in various ways, according to the tastes of the consumers. The Greek palate was not so sensitive to the good things of the table, nor so choice in its predilections as the Roman; yet we find various references to oysters in the works of Greek authors, although little interesting matter. Whether Homer was familiar with these delicacies or not is uncertain; he appears to have only one passage which may possibly contain an allusion to oysters. Patroclus, after having knocked a certain Trojan charioteer off his chariot with a stone, addresses him in not very polite language, as follows: 'Good heavens! what active feats yon artist shows! Mark with what ease they sink into the sand, Pity that all their practice is by land!' 1 Tylor's Early History of Mankind. 2 Antiquity of Man, p. 13. 3 The words Tea dipŵv are supposed to refer to oyster-catching, but Thea is a word of uncertain meaning. But that oysters were early used as food by the Greeks is evident from the fragments of Archestratus that have come down. to us. Archestratus was a native of Gela or Syracuse, and lived about B.C. 370. He was a thorough epicure, and extremely fond of fish, and took so much pleasure in all that relates to 'the good things of life,' that he travelled through various countries in order that he might see what different animals different people ate, and report thereupon. That he thoroughly appreciated a snug dinner-party is evident from these lines: 'I write these precepts for immortal Greece, Or three, or four, may sit in choice repast, He mentions different places as being famous for their production of various kinds of fish, especially shell-fish, as in the following lines: 'Aenus has mussels fine, Abydos, too, Is famous for its oysters; Parium produces Crabs, the bears of the sea, and Mitylene periwinkles: And the boar-fish sends forth and in its narrow strait : Messene cherishes the largest cockles. In Ephesus you shall catch chem which are not bad, And Chalcedon will give you oysters (Tea). But, my Jupiter, Destroy the race of criers, both the fish born in the sea, And those wretches which infest the city Forum; All except one man, for he is a friend of mine, Dwelling in Lesbos abounding in grapes, and his name is Agatho.' Matron, a certain individual who wrote parodies, calls oysters 'the truffles of the sea,' by which comparison he meant to bestow high praise upon the dainty mollusc. Beyond the notices of oysters to be found in Athenæus, scarcely anything occurs in Greek authors. Aristotle speaks of them, but not in any way that deserves repetition. Oysters were considered an article of great luxury amongst the Romans, and various tales are on record of the vast numbers consumed by the gourmets of imperial Rome. Pliny speaks of them as palma mensarum divitum' (Nat. Hist. xxxii. 6); he considered that the best kind came from Circeii (his neque dulciora neque teneriora esse ulla compertum est'). The first person who established oyster-parks (ostrearum vivaria) was Sergius Orata, or, as his name is sometimes written, from his fondness for gold-fish it is said, S. Aurata.1 He appears to have 1 Others suppose he obtained this name from the large gold rings he used to wear. We would suggest another reason-he had plenty of money. VOL. XLVI.-NO. XCI. N been a man of considerable ability and refinement, and a most successful breeder of oysters. Cicero, in a fragment preserved by Augustin, speaks of him as 'ditissimus, amoenissimus, deliciosissimus.' His oyster-parks were formed at Baiæ, in the Lucrine Lake, and the mode adopted by him for securing the oyster brood was probably similar to that now in vogue in the same locality. It was customary for the Romans to collect oysters. from Brundusium, Tarentum, Cyzicum, and even from Britain, and to fatten them on the beds of the Lucrine Lake. Thorough epicures pretended to tell at first bite what localities the oysters came from: 'Circeis nata forent an Lucrinum ad saxum Rutupinove edita fundo In Macrobius (ii. 9), an express distinction is made between ostrea cruda, which were handed to the guests before dinner, quantum vellent, and patina ostrearum, which was a warm dish prepared from oysters, shall we call it a dish of oyster-scallops? A particular kind of bread was eaten with oysters, which was called panis ostrearius. Before the introduction of the British oysters from the shores of Kent, the Lucrine and the Circeiian were in the highest request; but when the Roman palate became acquainted with the flavour of a real English native,' their own oysters had to yield the palm. 'From the fourth century to the reign of Louis IV. of France, the history of the oyster is a blank; but that king revived the taste for our favourite, and during his captivity in Normandy brought it again into request with his conqueror, Duke William. So, when the Normans invaded England under William the Conqueror,-the descendant of that Duke William, little more than a century later,-they were not long in finding out how much Kentish and Essex oysters were preferable to those of France.' 1 But let us turn to more practical matters. Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys, a high authority in all that relates to molluscous animals, enumerates five varieties of our common oyster, Ostrea edulis, namely,-O. parasitica, O. hippopus, O. deformis, O. rutupina, O. tincta. Var. 1 is found on shells, crabs, and other substances; the shell is small, flat, colour purplish or greenish-brown, with streaks of a darker hue radiating from the beaks. It has a more southern distribution than the other varieties. large and very thick shell; it occurs in deep water, and is solitary. Var. 3 has a small, distorted, and often nearly cylindrical shell; it occupies the crevices of rocks in the littoral or Var. 2 has a 1 The Oyster: When, How, and Where to Find, Breed, Cook, and Eat it, pp. 24. London. |