Birds and Nature Vol. 11 No. 2 [February 1902]

Willis searched carefully for an opening. At last he found one near the hinge.

“What is this?” asked Willis, handing his playmate a little doubled-up thing about as large as a pea.

After examining it carefully for a moment Joseph exclaimed: “You must have found its mouth. This is surely a baby crab which has been swallowed. See its little legs drawn up to its body.”

Both agreed that they had found a crab. They again turned their attention to the oyster’s mouth.

“What a large mouth for such a little animal! See how far I can put the point of my knife into it. It must have some bowels. I wonder if its bowels are here at the larger end. It looks puffy and dark inside. The thing is so slippery that I can scarcely handle it.”

“Can it see, Willis?”

“I can find no eyes.”

The boys took the oyster out of the water several times that they might see how it looked tucked so snugly between its shells. Every time they touched it the opening was closed tight. Thus the boys spent the afternoon.

When Joseph went home Willis said: “Come over to-morrow and we will get auntie to tell us more about the oyster.”

After dinner Willis went to his room and watched his oyster again until his eyes drooped.

Presently there was a thump-thump-thumping across the floor behind him. What was Willis’s surprise to see a big library book come near and with one leap place himself on the table. He was again surprised to see the oyster reach a long arm out of the water and the book another long arm from between its leaves. They two then shook hands. Both raised themselves to a vertical position and made a bow to Willis.

“We will try to tell you what you wish to know. Then you can surprise Aunt Jennie by telling her some things.” As he spoke Mrs. Oyster swelled herself up so large that the soft white matter protruded from the shell; for she had never before had the high honor of talking to a real boy.

Willis was so pleased that he clapped his hands.

Mrs. Oyster crawled up and nicely balanced herself on the edge of the dish. Willis was speechless with surprise.

Book spoke: “This is Mrs. Oyster. She belongs to the subkingdom of shellfish called Mollusca. All of her folks have soft bodies. As she is protected by a shell of two parts, she is said to be a bi-valve. Her relative, Snail,” said he, motioning with his hand, “having a single shell is called a uni-valve.”

Looking in the direction of the movement of Book’s hand, what was his surprise to see a snail with a shell on his back crawling across the table. Where he came from, Willis could not tell.

“When looking at that oyster this afternoon you noticed a thickened portion fastened to a dark spot on the valve,” said Book.

“I remember,” said Willis.

“There is a muscle,” continued Book, “fastened at the dark spot on each valve. It becomes very strong by use. An oyster knows how to let it stretch, thus opening the valves to allow water to enter his chamber. It also knows how to draw it up so as to close them to keep out intruders. The white covering over the body is called the ‘mantle’. If you notice the inside of an oyster valve, you can see a mark showing how near to the edge the mantle came. That is called the pallial line.

“If you will keep on looking you will succeed in finding that besides a mouth an oyster has a stomach, liver and intestines, a nervous system, and a heart that pumps blood, though it is not red but white blood.

“When you breathe, you take in your lungs from air what is called oxygen. Without oxygen there can be no life. Anything that can not in some way take in oxygen can not have life. Water as well as air contains it. Oysters have no lungs, but they have leaf-like gills on each side of the body. By means of these they get oxygen.”

“Can an oyster see?” asked Willis.

“It has organs of sight, hearing, smelling, touch.”

“Where are his eyes? We could not find them.”

“Hunt them again,” laughed Book. “I think that I will not tell you that. Since an oyster has no head you must not be surprised to find them in an odd place. The dark part which you noticed this afternoon and which shows so plainly in a cooked oyster is its great liver.”

“To-morrow I will again try to find eyes. Perhaps auntie will let me take her glass.”

Stepping near and pointing as he talked, Book continued:

“To protect her soft body, friend Mrs. Oyster’s mantle produces a shell of lime which grows by being enlarged around the edge. The high point on the left valve is called the beak. If you will scrub her shell with a brush to-morrow you will see lines running around the beak in the same direction as the margin. These are called ‘lines of growth.’ By them oystermen can tell the age of the shellfish.”

“How strange!” said Willis thoughtfully. “Tree trunks also show lines of growth.”

“Where did you come from?” asked Willis of Mrs. Oyster.

“As I have lived most of my life within this narrow shell,” she answered with a cast-down air, “I have no idea where I came from nor where I now am. Shall I tell you the story of my life?”

“Yes, do, please. It must be interesting. You are such an odd creature.”

“The first thing I remember,” said Mrs. Oyster after she had drawn a full breath, “is that I was a tiny bit of white mucus, or egg, as people say, swimming gayly around with my brothers and sisters in my mother’s shell. It was worse than in the case of the old woman who lived in a shoe. There were two or three thousand of us – maybe more. At any rate there were so many of us that our poor mother never had time to count us. But she was one who never worried. To keep us from getting lost she kept us in by closing her shell tight. That let her get no food. With a true mother’s spirit she fed us on the substance of her own body until she became very poor.”

“Beg pardon,” said Book. “Let me explain to our friend. At that time the mucus within the shell in which the young oysters swim looks milky. The old oyster, who is said to be in the milk, is then unfit to eat.”

“By the time two weeks had rolled around,” went on Mrs. Oyster, “things in our house began to turn very dark in color and our mother received a prompt message from Dame Nature saying that she must turn us out of her house and home. Poor mother! She knew that Dame Nature’s orders must be obeyed or death to the whole family would come. So she bade us good-bye, gave us a bit of advice, and opened the door. Knowing nothing of the size of the world and the things which happen outside of a shell, and thinking that we were going out only for a little romp, we in one voice assured her that we would not go very far.

“Eagerly we rushed out, to find that thousands of mothers on that same oyster bank were also just expelling their little ones. I became lost from my brothers and sisters. The water was so full of myriads of babies like myself that it took all of my attention to simply keep out of the way of the crowd. The oyster babies all looked so much alike that I lost hope of ever knowing one of my brothers again. Indeed, I could scarcely tell which was myself. Our mothers were down deep, but we rose near the surface where we could see the beautiful blue sky.”

“Did you find anything to eat?” asked Willis with great concern.

“Oh, yes. We found plenty of tiny animals and specks of vegetables that eased our hunger and helped us to grow. After swimming freely for a few days our shells began to form and we found ourselves unable to swim long distances. They soon weighted us down and we began to sink. I heard a mother oyster pitifully calling, ‘Baby, baby, come to mamma.’ I wondered if it were my mamma, but I could not get to her. I came along by a piece of tile. Being tired and worn out, as that was the first clean thing I had seen I clutched to it, thinking that after I had rested a few moments I could go on. But I found that I could not loosen myself. Looking around, I could see tile after tile looking like they had just been scrubbed. Just like my piece, every one was soon thickly covered with ‘spat,’ as the oystermen called us. As fretting has no part in an oyster’s life we contented ourselves thinking that we might in some way again get loose.

“‘Perhaps,’ said one, ‘some of those big things we saw may come along and brush some of us off.’ ‘Perhaps,’ said another, ‘the owner may take up his tile and clean it off for other use some day; it certainly is of no use with us crowding on it.’ So we lived in hope.”

“How large were you?” asked Willis.

“I can not tell how fast I grew.”

Book again made himself useful. “Men who have watched and measured their growth claim that at two weeks of age a young oyster is as large as a pinhead; at that of three months as large as a pea. Its shell grows about an inch in diameter each year for the first three years. After that its size does not increase so fast.”

Mrs. Oyster again resumed her story. “At last one day they said that we would soon be large enough for ‘seed.’ A few days later we found ourselves broken off from our clutching places and shut up in some dark place. The next thing we knew we were being lowered on a sandy bottom not so deep down as our old home. Now, when we catch and grow on something we like a vertical position. At first our two valves are alike, but in time the left one becomes more convex. If the shell of one of us becomes so heavy that it breaks off, the convex side, in dropping, goes to the bottom. When they planted us the men were kind enough to lay us in that position.

“When I was about a year old I began to spawn. It is needless to say that I lived over again the sad experiences of my poor mother. Some of the spat attached themselves to my shell and I gladly adopted them. For a while we were very happy. Then one day, those great iron tongs again disturbed us. The ‘seed’ were broken off and I was replaced childless. Next time I spawned I understood what it all meant. I begged my second set of adopted children if one of them ever had a chance to do so to send me a message. I lived with the great hope that I might be allowed to remain there until I had heard from some of them.”

“Did you ever hear from any of them?”

“From only two of my great family, but other oyster mothers have not had even that much good luck. One day a diving bird came along hunting me. He said that another bird with great strong wings had a message for me from one of my children.

“How excited I became! One of my stolen children had been seen at the New York harbor.

“About two years later,” continued Mrs. Oyster, “a fish brought me a letter.” Taking a crumpled paper from out of her pocket and wiping her watery eyes on her mantle frill she read:

Dear Mamma:

I have begged one of the students to write this. When he goes fishing again he will try to find a fish who will promise to take it to you.