" The Glorious Oyster—his history in Rome and in Britain,
his anatomy and reproduction, how to cook him, and what various writers and poets have written in his praise, collected together as an acknowledgment of the supreme pleasure he has given to all persons of taste since Roman times, by Hector Bolitho, with certain chapters edited by Maurice Burton, M.Sc., Natural History Museum "—such is the attractive title page of this new Knopf book (6s.), and Mr. Bolitho's performance comes up to his promise. He quotes Huxley's comment—" when the sapid and slippery morsel—which is, and is gone like a flash of gustatory summer lightning— glides along the palate, few people imagine that they are swallowing a piece of machinery (and going machinery, too) greatly more complicated than a watch." This is a gruesome thought, but we may take comfort from the fact that the oyster is really rather a brainless creature with a diffused nervous system unlikely to feel digestion, or being digested. Pepys doted on oysters. On the day Charles II. crossed from The Hague for the Restoration, a ship's captain gave him four barrels of these shellfish as a present. The following November he notes that he and his friends enjoyed " a barrel of good ones and a great deal of wine."
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