Oysters are of all sizes, and there are some so large that they require to be carved. In New York, the paradise of oyster‐eaters, they range from the size of a half‐crown to five or six inches long. The shores of Long Island, a distance round of 115 miles, are one continuous oyster‐field, while the one State of Virginia is said to possess nearly 2,000,000 acres of oyster‐beds. The Americans are great lovers of the bivalve, which is probably one of the most wholesome forms of _easy_ nourishment which can possibly be taken. In a stew with milk, and a little oatmeal, or as soup, they are especially good for invalids, and when one can take nothing else, he can usually relish oysters. And, as all gastronomers know, they rather increase than diminish appetite; hence the modern French practice of taking half a dozen _before_ the soup is served. “There is no alimentary substance,” says a French writer, “not even excepting bread, which does not produce indigestion under given circumstances; but oysters never.... We may eat them to‐day, to‐morrow, eat them always and in profusion, without fear of indigestion.” The few who cannot eat them, and there _are_ such, are really to be commiserated. How highly they are esteemed in some countries is shown by the fact that some years ago they cost in St. Petersburg a paper rouble, or about a shilling _each_; in Stockholm, fivepence each. In England only two or three years ago they had risen to nearly four‐fifths of the latter price; but now, thanks to the extensive cultivation, and to the importation of excellent American oysters on a large scale, they are within the reach of all. Of the quantity of oysters consumed in London alone who can give even an approximate guess? Fancy, if you can, also, that curiously courteous exchange which goes on every Christmas between our oyster‐eating country cousins and our turkey and goose loving Londoners. The turkey, the brace of pheasants or hares, has arrived. “Such a present,” says the author of “The Oyster,” “is promptly repaid by a fine cod packed in ice, and two barrels of oysters. How sweet are these when eaten at a country home, and opened by yourselves, the barrel being paraded on the table with its head knocked out, and with the whitest of napkins round it. * * * How sweet it is, too, to open some of the dear natives for your pretty cousin, and to see her open her sweet little mouth about as wide as Lesbia’s sparrow did for his lump of—not sugar, it was not then invented—but lump of honey! How sweet it is, after the young lady has swallowed her half‐dozen, to help yourself! The oyster never tastes sweeter than when thus operated on by yourself, so that you do not ‘job’ the knife into your hand!”