Abstract
THIS practice, described in the current number of NATURE (p. 572) as owing “its existence to a careful study of the habits of the bivalve,” is by no means new, though probably original on the part of the American naturalists. Our London fishmongers have muzzled oysters on a large scale from a time that is immemorial among them. Barrelled oysters are all very carefully muzzled, but without wires, as anybody may learn by watching an expert in the process of barrelling. It will be seen that he lays the-oysters one by one carefully in tiers up to the top of the barrel, and then lays another tier rising above the level of the top. Having done this, he places the lid of the barrel on this exuberant tier, and thumps and rattles the barrel on a stone pavement or other solid ground until, by close packing of the whole, it descends to the level of the barrel top. The mass of oysters being thus compressed so as to render the slightest gaping of any one quite impossible, he firmly nails down the head of the barrel.
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WILLIAMS, W. The Muzzling of Oysters. Nature 37, 585 (1888). https://doi.org/10.1038/037585b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/037585b0
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