But oysters have their social as well as their natural and economic history. The name of the courageous individual who ate the first oyster has not been recorded, but there is a legend concerning him to the following effect:—Once upon a time—it must be a prodigiously long time ago, however—a man of melancholy mood, who was walking by the shores of a picturesque estuary, listening to the monotonous murmur of the sad sea-waves, espied a very old and ugly oyster, all coated over with parasites and sea-weeds. It was so unprepossessing that he kicked it with his foot, and the animal, astonished at receiving such rude treatment on its own domain, gaped wide with indignation. Seeing the beautiful cream-coloured layers that shone within the shelly covering, and fancying the interior of the shell itself to be beautiful, he lifted up the aged “native” for further examination, inserting his finger and thumb within the shells. The irate mollusc, thinking no doubt that this was meant as a further insult, snapped his pearly door close upon the finger of the intruder, causing him some little pain. After releasing his wounded digit, the inquisitive gentleman very naturally put it in his mouth. “Delightful!” exclaimed he, opening wide his eyes. “What is this?” and again he sucked his thumb. Then the great truth flashed upon him, that he had found out a new delight—had in fact accidentally achieved the most important discovery ever made up to that date! He proceeded at once to the verification of his thought. Taking up a stone, he forced open the doors of the oyster, and gingerly tried a piece of the mollusc itself. Delicious was the result; and so, there and then, with no other condiment than the juice of the animal, with no reaming brown stout or pale chablis to wash down the repast, no nicely-cut, well-buttered brown bread, did that solitary anonymous man inaugurate the oyster banquet. Another way of the story is that the man who ate the first oyster was compelled to do so for a punishment:— “The man had sure a palate covered o’er With brass, or steel, that on the rocky shore First broke the oozy oyster’s pearly coat, And risk’d the living morsel down his throat.”