en a dignitary episcopal and an
ancient dame by the comparative length of their respective
aprons. In that soft and gelatinous body lies a whole world of
vitality and quiet enjoyment. Somebody has styled fossiliferous
rocks 'monuments of the felicity of past ages.' An undisturbed
oyster-bed is a concentration of happiness in the present.
Dormant though the several creatures there congregated seem,
each individual is leading the beatified existence of an
epicurean god. The world without--its cares and joys, its
storms and calms, its passions, evil and good--all are
indifferent to the unheeding oyster. Unobservant even of what
passes in its immediate vicinity, its whole soul is
concentrated in itself; yet not sluggishly and apathetically,
for its body is throbbing with life and enjoyment. The mighty
ocean is subservient to its pleasures. The rolling waves waft
fresh and choice food within its reach, and the flow of the
current feeds it without requiring an effort. Each atom of
water that comes in contact with its delicate gills involves
its imprisoned air to freshen and invigorate the creature's
pellucid blood. Invisible to human eye, unless aided by the
wonderful inventions of human science, countless millions of
vibrating cilia are moving incessantly with synchronic beat on
every fibre of each fringing leaflet. Well might old
Leeuwenhoek exclaim, when he looked through his microscope at
the beard of a shell-fish, 'The motion I saw in the small
component parts of it was so incredibly great, that I could not
be satisfied with the spectacle; and it is not in the mind of
conceive all the motions which I beheld within the compass of a
grain of sand.' And yet the Dutch naturalist, unaided by the
finer instruments of our time, beheld but a dim and misty
indication of the exquisite cilliary apparatus by which these
motions are effected. How strange to reflect that all this
elaborate and inimitable contrivance has been devised for the
well-being of a despised shell-fish? Nor is it merely in the
working members of the creature that we find its wonders
comprised. There are portions of its frame which seem to serve
no essential purpose in its economy: which might be omitted
without disturbing the course of its daily duties, and yet so
constant